Originally Posted by rickair7777

True. The 350 construction technique is traditional, but the panels and stringers will be composite.

Actually this is a half-measure by airbus...they would have preferred a one-piece fuselage barrel, but did not have access to the giant autoclaves needed to cure such parts.

The original 350 design was just a warmed over A330 (ie aluminum) but customers balked at that so airbus had to add some better features to the 350XB. Since they blew all of their R&D budget on the great white 380, they could not afford to clean-slate the 350.