Regulator grounded 13 Qatar Airways Airbus A350s over surface issue.
Qatar Airways has been instructed by its regulator to ground 13 Airbus A350 planes due a faster than expected deterioration of the fuselage surface below the paint on the jets.
See also: Qatar Airways denies any plans to start passenger flights to Mexico.
The state-owned Gulf airline said on Thursday it had been told to ground the planes until “the root cause can be established and a satisfactory solution made available to permanently correct the underlying condition.”
Qatar Airways has been locked in a months-long public dispute with Airbus, insisting it would not take any deliveries of the carbon-composite widebody jet until the problem was resolved.
“With this latest development, we sincerely expect that Airbus treats this matter with the proper attention that it requires,” Qatar Airways Chief Executive Akbar Al Baker said in a statement announcing the regulator’s grounding of the jets.
See also: Qatar Airways and Alaska Airlines to Further Strengthen Partnership.
“Qatar Airways expects Airbus to have established the root cause and permanently corrected the underlying condition to the satisfaction of Qatar Airways and our regulator before we take delivery of any further A350 aircraft.”
An Airbus spokesperson told Reuters the planemaker was always in talks with its customers but those discussions were confidential, declining to comment further.
Qatar Airways said in June it had grounded some of its A350 jets until the issue could be understood and fixed, without disclosing how many aircraft had been pulled from service.
It said on Thursday it had brought A330 aircraft back into to service to make up for the lost capacity and was also “looking at other solutions.”
Qatar Airways is the largest customer for the A350 and has taken delivery of 53 out of 76 on order.
Photo: Oliver Holzbauer/Wikimedia
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