Airbus announced in January that Qatar Airways can whistle for the 50 321neos that the airline has ordered and which would be delivered from next year. Airbus believes that Qatar Airways is unreliable and spreads nonsense. The two sides have had a conflict for some time over problems with the A350 fleet and are fighting it out in court.
Flaking paint
Qatar was the launch customer for the A350 and has already received 53 of them. A large part of these are on the ground due to problems with peeling paint. Anomalies in the lightning conductor were also found. The airline, which believes that flight safety is endangered, therefore does not want to purchase any more ordered A350s for the time being.
According to Airbus, Qatar Airways is exaggerating the problem of receiving financial compensation and wrongly implying that the aircraft manufacturer is not doing enough to remedy it. That would be at the expense of Airbus’ good reputation. In retaliation, the manufacturer decided to cancel the order for fifty A321neos.
Qatar Airways reacted furiously to this. The airline called it “deeply regrettable” and “frustrating” that Airbus allowed the cancellation to further “escalate” the conflict and decided to go to court. According to the airline, the A321neo order has nothing to do with the A350 conflict. According to Airbus, however, they are contractually linked.
Although the court has now ruled that Airbus may cancel the A321neo order and sell the aircraft to other customers, it cannot be ruled out that the manufacturer will have to pay financial compensation. That could be the subject of a subsequent, more extensive lawsuit. Meanwhile, another lawsuit is pending over the damage to the A350s.
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