Qatar Airways said that the Qatar Civil Aviation Authority (QCAA) reportedly grounded 13 of Qatar Airways’ Airbus A350 aircraft. The move came because the surface below the paint on certain A350s was degrading at an accelerated rate.
“With this latest development, we sincerely expect that Airbus treats this matter with the proper attention that it requires,” Qatar Airways CEO Akbar Al Baker said in a statement. “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.”
Qatar Airways voiced the problem about the Airbus A350 aircraft quality issues in June 2021. The Qatari airline’s boss warned that they would refuse to take deliveries from Airbus if disagreement was unresolved.
“They are ignoring the fact that there are serious issues with those airplanes,” Al Baker said during the FlightPlan III webinar in July 2021. “We have serious concerns about those aircraft.”
Qatar Airways fleet of Airbus A350 XWB aircraft currently stands at 53, as per Planespotters.net data. The Doha-based air carrier has 19 Airbus A350-1000s and 34 Airbus A350-900 aircraft of an average of 2.7 years.
