Qatar Airways says all A350s flying again, a year after Airbus legal dispute
Qatar Airways has finished bringing its fleet of Airbus A350 jets back into service, more than year after settling a rare legal dispute with Airbus over damage to their painted surface, a senior airline executive said on Tuesday (Mar 5).
“We see opportunities by having more aircraft coming into the fleet”, the airline’s chief commercial officer Thierry Antinori told Reuters at the ITB travel fair in Berlin.
“So we see a lot of potential between Europe and Asia, Europe and Australia, Europe and Indian Ocean and Africa.”
Qatar Airways had taken the unusual step of publicly challenging the world’s largest planemaker Airbus over safety after paint cracks exposed gaps in a sub-layer of lightning protection on its new-generation A350 carbon-composite jets.
Backed by European regulators, Airbus consistently denied any safety threat. The airline and planemaker resolved the feud last year, averting a court trial.
The A350 fleet is now completely repaired and back in air, he said. “You know we had this little issue. This is solved now. Since last week they are repaired and are back in the sky.”
GET BT IN YOUR INBOX DAILY
Start and end each day with the latest news stories and analyses delivered straight to your inbox.
Traffic was also set to recover and even grow, with a strong summer ahead, Antinori said.
In January and February, Qatar had 7.2 million passengers, 31 per cent more than in the first two months of the previous year and 40 per cent more than before the Covid-19 pandemic began. REUTERS
KEYWORDS IN THIS ARTICLE
BT is now on Telegram!
For daily updates on weekdays and specially selected content for the weekend. Subscribe to t.me/BizTimes
Transport & Logistics
Stellantis takes on China budget EVs with Leapmotor sales in Europe
China’s Comac is designing a new widebody jet
Electric vehicle sales in UK on the rise, but still short of official targets
Capital A’s Teleport targets rapid growth after airline spinoff
SingPost, Lithuania’s biggest postal business tie up to explore new business
Chinese EV giant BYD to unveil plug-in hybrid pickup in Mexico