Qatar & Airbus: A350s grounded until resolution

Alex Macheras

Qatar Airways has confirmed that it has grounded 13 Airbus A350s over what it described as an issue whereby the fuselage is “degrading at an accelerated rate” in the long-range aircraft. In its statement, Qatar Airways said it had been monitoring the degradation beneath the paint on the fuselage of the aircraft for some time. It described the issue as a “significant condition”, without elaborating. “Following the explicit written instruction of its regulator, 13 aircraft have now been grounded, effectively removing them from service until such time as the root cause can be established and a satisfactory solution made available to permanently correct the underlying condition” the airline said in its statement. Qatar Airways has a fleet of 53 Airbus A350s in both its 1000 and 900 series. It was the launch customer of both aircraft types. The airline has another on order with the Toulouse, France-based aeroplane manufacturer, making its total order of 76 aircraft — the most of any airline worldwide. In June, Qatar Airways said it wouldn’t take any more A350s unless the problem was resolved. Airbus has responded to the grounding – which has caught international attention – with a statement: “As a leading aircraft manufacturer we are always in talks/working with our customers. Those talks we keep confidential. We have no further comment on our customer’s operations. While there have been findings on some in-service A350 surface paint which Airbus has been investigating, Airbus sources have said that the manufacturer shared a thorough assessment with EASA for evaluation which demonstrated that there is “no airworthiness impact on the fleet” allowing for continued operations. At this stage, Airbus also continues to insist that no additional inspections are required beyond existing scheduled maintenance. The A350 family is the world’s most modern and efficient widebody family and the long-range leader. It is the only all-new design aircraft in the 300-410 seater category, and Airbus say it offers the lowest cost per seat of any large widebody. The aircraft type has received close to 1,000 orders from around 50 different airline customers worldwide. While standoffs between manufacturers and their airline customers are relatively common in the aviation sector, it’s in Airbus’ best interest to have the dispute with Qatar Airways resolved as quickly as possible, not least because of the potential impacts on the manufacturer’s hopes for securing a launch customer for an upcoming freighter version of its A350. Earlier this summer, Airbus’ board of directors officially approved the design and development of freighter aircraft based on the Airbus A350, and the move is a long-awaited shake to Boeing’s freight market dominance. The company expects the A350F to enter the market by 2025 and that the aircraft will be based on the A350-1000 version along with a payload capacity of more than 90 tons. Qatar Airways has already confirmed the airline is “hungry for more freighters” and hinted they would be confident to be the first to take a new A350F. Speaking at Bloomberg’s Qatar Economic Forum in Doha, Qatar Airways Group Chief Executive HE Akbar al-Baker said that for the last two years, excluding cargo companies FedEx and UPS, the Qatari airline had been the largest freight carrier in the world and growth had dramatically accelerated during the pandemic. Al-Baker said the carrier would like to order more freighters but there is a wait for slots at Boeing. “We are really hungry for more freighters,” al-Baker said. “Unfortunately, David (David Calhoun, CEO of Boeing] cannot produce for us more B777F, the earliest he can give me is in 2023.” Al-Baker added: “We are very keen to be a launch customer, be it for the A350F or the B777X freighters. At Qatar Airways, we will concentrate on airfreight as an important part of our total strategy, of course, but first we are an airline to carry passengers.” * The author is an aviation analyst. Twitter handle: @AlexInAir