By The Airbus A350 Boeing 787 cockpit comparison cuts to the heart of a long-standing divide in commercial aviation design philosophy. Airbus and Boeing have pursued fundamentally different approaches to how pilots interact with their aircraft, and nowhere is that more visible than on the flight deck of these two competing long-haul widebodies.
Two Design Philosophies, One Flight Deck at a Time
Airbus has built its modern cockpit philosophy around a high degree of fly-by-wire automation, sidestick controllers, and a standardised layout that carries over from narrowbodies to widebodies. The goal is commonality — a pilot transitioning from an A320 to an A350 encounters a cockpit that feels deliberate and familiar.
Boeing, however, has maintained its preference for conventional control columns and a design ethos that gives pilots a more direct tactile connection to aircraft control inputs. The 787’s flight deck reflects that tradition while incorporating modern touchscreen displays and updated avionics architecture.
As a result, pilots moving between the two types often describe the transition as a genuine adjustment — not just procedurally, but in terms of feel and situational awareness.
What Crews Report When Switching Between Types
The most immediate difference pilots cite is the sidestick versus yoke configuration. Airbus’s sidestick sits to the left or right of each pilot with no physical feedback between the two stations — meaning one pilot cannot feel what the other is inputting. Boeing’s yoke, by contrast, moves in response to control inputs and offers more conventional feedback.
Display layout is another point of early adjustment. The A350 uses a touchscreen-capable system integrated into Airbus’s standard dark-cockpit philosophy, where any illuminated light signals a fault or required action. The 787 uses a similarly modern glass cockpit but arranges its primary flight and navigation displays differently, which pilots transitioning from Airbus describe as requiring deliberate reorientation.
Thrust management also differs. Airbus uses autothrust with detents that do not back-drive the thrust levers, so the levers remain stationary during automated thrust changes. Boeing’s autothrottle physically moves the thrust levers, giving crews a visual and tactile cue of what the system is doing — a distinction that pilots transitioning from one type to the other must consciously account for.
Why the Airbus A350 Boeing 787 Cockpit Debate Matters
For airlines operating mixed fleets, the cognitive differences between these two cockpits carry real operational weight. Regulators and airline training departments set strict conditions around mixed-fleet flying, precisely because the ingrained habits from one type can surface unexpectedly on the other.
Both aircraft are certified to the highest current airworthiness standards and both have strong safety records. However, the transition challenge between them underlines a broader industry conversation about whether greater cross-manufacturer cockpit standardisation would benefit aviation safety in the long run — a debate that has no easy resolution given the commercial and certification complexity involved.
