New Delhi: In an escalating dispute with European planemaker Airbus, Qatar Airways released a video of damaged exteriors of grounded A350 jets. The video released on YouTube by Qatar Airways showed damages on the skin of the A350S jets that were being grounded by the country’s regulator. Qatar Airways released the first official video after it accused Airbus over what it described as the “accelerated surface degradation” of the wide-body A350.
Airbus and one of its biggest customers, Qatar Airways, are embroiled in a legal dispute over the grounding of the larger twin-aisle A350 plane. Earlier, Airbus terminated a multibillion-dollar order by Qatar Airways for 50 of its single-aisle in-demand A321neo jets. The termination of the contract for the A321neo, was confirmed by the planemaker as reported by news agency The Associated Press on Friday.
In December, Qatar’s national carrier announced it was suing Airbus in London over what it described as the “accelerated surface degradation” of the wide-body A350. Qatar Airways said it had no choice but to ground a number of the jets, with 21 now out of operation.
The termination of the Airbus contract for its 321neos follows on the heels of Qatar Airways refusing to take any more A350s until the problem is fixed.
The state-owned airline will be relying on the long-haul A350 for the increased inflow of passengers to Qatar for the month-long FIFA 2022 World Cup, which will be played in the Arab Gulf state starting November 21.
Qatar Airways has a fleet of 53 Airbus A350s in both its 1000 and 900 series. The airline has more on order with the France-based airplane manufacturer, making its total order of 76 A350s the most of any airline worldwide.
