Airbus and Qatar Airways’ conflict continues as the planemaker cancel another one of the carrier’s aircraft orders.
On February 8, Tuesday, as per the data from Airbus showed, it has cancelled the order of two A350-1000 aircraft from Qatar as stresses continue to rise over surface paint issues on the carrier’s A350 jets. It notified Qatar’s default on failure to take two deliveries.”
According to the Airbus spokesperson, “We confirm we did not end delivery positions for 2 A350s with Qatar Airways in complete keeping with our rights.”
“In this unusual situation, this decision came as a last resort and followed many hopeless tries to find mutually beneficial solutions.”
The news comes after few weeks of the planemaker cancelled Qatar’s order of 50 A321 aircraft, which was prompted by the carrier suing Airbus in a London High Court for $618 million after forcing it to ground 21 of its A350s.
According to Qatar, critical paint on the widebody planes poses an airworthiness matter. However, Qatar did not respond immediately to Insider’s request for comment.
As the Qatar CEO Akbar Al Baker told the South China Morning Post in December, “The airline has been a long-time customer of Airbus, having been the launch carrier of the A350-1000. Still, the surface paint issues have “destroyed” their association.