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Airbus cancels big order for 50 A321neos from Qatar Airways

By

 André Orban

 -

21 January 2022

Qatar Airways A321neo

The feud between Airbus and Qatar Airways has reached new heights: Airbus has cancelled an order for 50 A321neos from Qatar Airways, an unprecedented decision taken in the context of its dispute with the Qatari company over paint problems on its large A350 aircraft.

The cancelled contract was concluded ten years ago and then represented $4.6 billion at list prices.

Airbus confirmed this decision just hours after the announcement by the British courts that the first hearing on this commercial dispute would take place during the week of 26 April. This complaint was filed in December by Qatar Airways.

“We confirm that we have terminated the contract for 50 A321s with Qatar Airways, in accordance with our law,” an Airbus spokesperson told AFP, confirming information from Bloomberg.

Qatar Airways, of which some of the A350s are grounded by the Qatari air authorities, is claiming more than 600 million dollars in compensation from Airbus, arguing design flaws in these planes. The company has refused to accept other A350s since last June and claims to have noticed accelerated wear of the paint on some of the aircraft already received. Airbus, for its part, acknowledged the existence of technical problems, but denied any safety problems.

Airbus has rejected the complaint “in full” and accuses Qatar Airways, a public company, of having influenced its supervisory authority to obtain the immobilisation of the planes concerned in order to obtain compensation.

Qatar Airways is expected to challenge the cancellation of its A321neo order, since the company intends to have the aircraft delivered after it cancelled an order for Boeing 737 MAX aircraft in 2020.

 Airbus has cancelled Qatar Airways’ $6 billion contract for 50 A350 aircraft because of the airline’s $600 million lawsuit against the manufacturer over peeling paint. 

Airbus announced the unusual move on Friday after Qatar went public with images of blistering and peeling paint on the 21 planes it has so far received under the contract. It claims the paint flaws are a safety hazard that expose the copper lines used to conduct lightning strikes through the composite structure. It says it had to ground the aircraft while the paint issue is resolved and the loss of revenue from using the planes is a big part of its claim.

Airbus said in court filings there was no need to ground the planes because the European Union Aviation Safety Agency reviewed the paint problem and found no safety issues. Rather, Airbus claims Qatar grounded the planes because of the COVID-19 pandemic and is using the paint issue to get Airbus to cover those costs. The airline rejected the claim. “These defects are not superficial and one of the defects causes the aircraft’s lightning protection system to be exposed and damaged,” it said. “We continue to urge Airbus to undertake a satisfactory root cause analysis into the cause of the defects.”