Airbus has canceled the rest of its contract for the delivery of 19 A350 planes in the context of the dispute between it and Qatar Airways, after having already canceled an order for 50 A321s in January, a source close to the company said on Wednesday. case.
The dispute dates back to August 2021 when the Qatari company decided to ground part of its fleet of A350 jumbo jets due to damage to the surface of the fuselages, claiming 200,000 dollars in compensation per plane and per day. immobilization. Airbus considers that this defect has no consequences on flight safety.
A legal and commercial battle is now taking place in court between the two groups. At the end of April, British justice ruled in favor of Airbus for the first time by authorizing it to resell undelivered A321s to other companies.
A decision confirmed at the end of May by the High Court in London, which also granted Qatar Airways’ request to speed up the trial schedule, scheduled for June next year.
The cancellation of the delivery of 19 A350-1000s is equivalent to a shortfall of 7 billion euros (6.8 billion francs) according to the catalog price of Airbus, in reality never applied.
Neither Airbus nor Qatar Airways commented on this information immediately.
‘Difficult’ to find a solution
In August 2021, Qatar Airways announced that it had received an order from its country’s regulator to ground 13 of its Airbus A350s already delivered due to the rapid deterioration of the fuselage surfaces. Last April, 23 of these aircraft had been grounded by the company for several months.
The European Aviation Safety Agency, EASA, considers that these degradations do not entail any airworthiness risks.
At the International Air Transport Association (Iata) General Assembly held in Doha, Qatar in June, Qatar Airways chief Akbar al-Baker called the cancellation of the A321 order ‘bullying’ .
“Never should an aircraft manufacturer be allowed to use its market dominance to intimidate its long-time customer,” al-Baker said.
Airbus boss Guillaume Faury assured him that they were looking to “discuss”. “We are trying to find a solution to move forward, but it is difficult,” he conceded.
Qatar Airways’ fleet includes 34 A350-900s and 19 A350-1000s, according to an Airbus document.
/ATS