Qatar Airways Grounded A350s

In the early 2020s, Qatar Airways and Airbus would lock horns in one of the largest disputes the industry has seen in decades.

The Doha-based carrier complaining of surface defect issues with its A350 fleet, and escalating its frustrations with the grounding of over 20 units from the program.

With the widebody plane parked, deliveries would be suspended, Airbus would cancel aircraft orders that the airline had made, legal action would ensue, and this story would occupy headlines for years.

But what truly happened, how did the groundings develop, why was legal action taken, and how did the dispute end?

A Dispute and Grounding

Qatar Airways’ long-standing dispute with Airbus over the A350 began towards the backend of 2020, during the height of the global pandemic.

The Doha-based carrier identified cracks in the paint of its newly delivered A350 product, something the business firmly believed should not be happening with its new planes.

With already over 50 units from the A350 family in service at the time of the dispute commencing, the airline’s commitment to the program was relatively strong, and the frustrations had the possibility of blowing into something even more significant.

As the months progressed, more and more of the units in the family began being grounded by Qatar Airways in response to concerns over the surface defect with the series.

In August 2021, the company said the Qatar Civil Aviation Authority (QCAA) had grounded 13 of its A350 jets, but this is a figure that would only grow with time and at its peak, saw over 20 of the program parked.

With the grounding, the airline’s CEO at the time, Akbar Al Baker, said in a statement that he hoped Airbus would treat the matter with the proper attention it requires, expecting that Airbus would establish the root cause and permanently correct the underlying condition to satisfy not just itself but its regulator.

While these groundings were taking shape, the airline also said it had paused the delivery of future aircraft from the A350 program until the issue could be sorted, leaving it short on capacity.

As a result, the airline reactivated its Airbus A330s and was looking for other solutions to restore capacity and mitigate the lost capacity resulting from the A350 jet groundings.

In the end, Qatar Airways would even go one step further with the reactivation of its A380 fleet, considered to be a last resort given the consensus within the business that this was a money-hungry plane that was a mistake.

A Legal Case Takes Shape

By the end of 2021, in December, with no light at the end of the tunnel of the long-standing saga between the two companies, legal proceedings began to take place.

Airbus confirmed that it would take legal advice over the ongoing surface damage to the A350 jets, which, as the planemaker said, was damaging the widebody’s reputation across the industry.

The decision by the planemaker follows the European Aviation Safety Agency, a key governing regulator, confirming that the surface defects had no impact on the airworthiness of the A350 fleet.

Qatar Airways, however, continued with the grounding of its A350 fleet and vocal outrage over the safety and state of the jet, according to executives at Airbus, with no other choice but to move ahead with a thorough legal response to defend itself.

Two weeks later, Qatar Airways launched its legal proceedings against Airbus in the Technology and Construction division of the High Court in London.

The Doha-based carrier said that it had failed to reach a constructive solution with Airbus in a bid to address the surface degradation condition, which they said was impacting the A350 aircraft delivered by the planemaker.

At the time of this, 21 of the airlines’ A350 aircraft remained grounded due to the condition, and the carrier was fighting back in a bid to ensure that its legitimate concerns were addressed and not pushed to the side.

Qatar Airways said that it believed that Airbus “must undertake a thorough investigation of this condition to establish its full root cause conclusively.”

Additionally, saying that without a proper understanding of the root cause of the condition causing the groundings to take place, they, as a business, were not able to establish whether a proposed repair solution would rectify the underlying condition.

With Qatar Airways seeking more than USD 600 million in compensation over surface flaws on its A350 aircraft following the revealing of a court document, the staggering situation escalated further.

Qatar Airways confirmed that because of the feud between itself and Airbus, there was a significant loss worth $4 million every time its A350 jets remained on the ground.

Additionally, by the first month of 2022, the carrier was requesting that Airbus deliver no more aircraft until the design defect had been fixed, rather than putting forward this firm order to judges to be implemented on the planemaker.

The Fallout Continues With Order News

However, while the ongoing dispute up until the first month of 2022 had seemed somewhat severe, the levels of the disagreements were about to be taken to a whole new level.

Airbus by the third week of 2022, confirming it would move ahead with the cancellation of an order held by Qatar Airways for 50 of the A321neo family aircraft.

Airbus deciding to move ahead with the move solely because of the ongoing dispute with the A350 aircraft, its dwindling relationship with Qatar Airways and its bid to place these delivery slots with airlines willing to support its business.

The cancellation, driven by the planemaker, is rare; in most cases, airlines will be the ones to cancel aircraft orders for a host of reasons.

The order cancellation was a snowballing of the ongoing A350 dispute and escalated the situation tenfold. Then, just a matter of weeks later, further orders for the A350-1000 were revoked.

A Resolution Arrives

After more than 18 months of tensions which escalated to dramatic levels and put at threat the airline’s relationship with the planemaker, possibly forever, a resolution was reached.

Labelled as an amicable and mutually agreeable settlement, the statements specified that it was on both parties and there was no admission of liability for either.

Instead, the settlement would allow Qatar Airways and Airbus to move forward and work together in the future as partners, even after the Gulf carrier had spent well over a year entangled with the planemaker over this dispute.

One year later, Qatar Airways saw its final A350-900, which had been grounded for two and a half years, return to service. The jet, registered as A7-ALF, represented an important milestone in the return to service of the widebody program.

Additionally, Airbus confirmed it would reintstate the orders for the A321neo, with 50 of these to be returned to the Doha-based carrier and deliveries recommencing for the A350.

The reactivation of the A321neo order, however, was not without a blemish in overall delivery plans as the pair confirmed the program would begin at that stage, being delivered in 2026, three years later than first expected, because of the cancellation.