• 

  Qatar Airways

  IATA/ICAO Code:

  QR/QTR

  Airline Type:

  Full Service Carrier

  Hub(s):

  Doha Hamad International Airport

  Year Founded:

  1993

  Alliance:

  oneworld

  CEO:

  Akbar Al Baker

  Country:

  Qatar

• 

  Airbus

  Stock Code:

  AIR

  Date Founded:

  1970-12-18

  CEO:

  Guillaume Faury

  Headquarters Location:

  Toulouse, France

  Key Product Lines:

  Airbus A220, Airbus A320, Airbus A330, Airbus A340, Airbus A350, Airbus A380

  Business Type:

  Planemaker

On Thursday, Airbus confirmed that it had revoked all remaining Airbus A350 orders from Qatar Airways. This is the latest escalation of the safety and contractual dispute between the Gulf carrier and the European manufacturer. Qatar Airways had 19 outstanding A350-1000 orders.

Dumping the order

The ongoing drama between Airbus and Qatar Airways took an extraordinary turn on Thursday when Airbus confirmed, on its monthly order data, that it had executed a rare cancellation, scrapping Qatar’s remaining A350-1000 unfilled order. Following publishing its data, an Airbus spokesperson confirmed the news to Reuters. The Middle Eastern carrier currently has 19 A350-100s and 34 A350-900s.

Qatar Airways was the first airline to introduce Airbus’ latest widebody to the skies in 2015. Last year, Qatar sued Airbus for at least $1.4 billion after grounding almost half its A350 fleet over premature surface damage. The Gulf carrier refused to take delivery of more A350s and took the issue to court while also releasing a damning video montage of at least three separate airframes showing degraded paintwork, which led Airbus also to cancel Qatar’s order for 50 A321neos.

Airbus backed in Europe

Qatar Airways brought the case to European courts, hoping to receive backing from the justice there, forcing Airbus to resume the deliveries of the A321neos order and get an explanation from Airbus regarding the missing patches of anti-lightning mesh left exposed by peeling paint in its A350s.

Nonetheless, a court in London ruled in April that Airbus did not have to continue building the planes for the airline. The court agreed with Airbus that the two contracts (for the A350 and the A321neo) were connected by a ‘cross default’ clause, which allowed the OEM to pull the plug on one deal if the other was not honored.

Discover more aviation news here.

During the Farnborough Airshow in July, Qatar confirmed a Memorandum of Understanding for 25 Boeing MAX 10 plus 25 options. Nonetheless, Qatar had claimed in the past that it would be unable to fill the gap left by the lack of the A321neos, even with the order for MAX jetliners.

As reported by Air Insight, Qatar A350-1000s that have been assembled but are currently stored in Toulouse are MSN409, MSN430, MSN438, MSN440, MSN444, and MSN450. All these planes, except for MSN450, had done their first flight.

Airbus deliveries in 2022

Airbus had booked orders for 843 jets between January and August 2022. It has a net total of 637 after cancellations, including the aircraft scrapped from Qatar’s orders. The European OEM delivered a total net of 380 jets over the same period, although it would have been 382 after Airbus built two A350 aircraft for Aeroflot but was unable to deliver them due to sanctions.

Meanwhile, Qatar Airways currently has unfilled orders for 125 planes, all from Boeing. According to data provided by ch-aviation, the Gulf airline still expects to receive 25 Boeing 737 MAX 10, two Boeing 777-200F, one B777-300(ER), 24 B777-8, 50 B777-9, and 23 Boeing 787-9.

What do you think about this latest announcement by Airbus? Let us know in the comments below.

Source: Reuters, ch-aviation, and Air Insight.