Airbus to Qatar: Sorry. Not Sorry

"In a sign of its growing leverage over customers, the plane maker is canceling the contentious carrier’s orders"

- By Charlotte Ryan, Siddharth Philip, Chris Jasper and Katharine Gemmell. Illustration by Peter Crowther

For more than two decades, Airbus SE and Qatar Airways have been locked in a tumultuous relationship. The Gulf airline’s chief executive officer, Akbar Al Baker, has always relished a good fight, ridiculing the plane maker’s managers in public or refusing to take aircraft because of a perceived defect. Each time, Airbus endured the torment because the carrier is among its best customers, with billions of dollars’ worth of planes on order.

Now the two are airing their grievances in public once again—only this time Airbus is fighting back. The companies are facing off in court in a high-stakes showdown that’s being closely watched in the industry, because it stands to redefine the relationship between manufacturers and airlines.

It all started with flaking paint on an Airbus A350 aircraft. The airline, the biggest buyer of Airbus’s most advanced model, which has a list price of more than $300 million, noticed the deterioration on a plane due to get a new livery in late 2020. Airbus recommended the jet be sent to its main facility in Toulouse, France, for further investigation, while maintaining that the model was safe to fly.

The dispute rumbled on last year, with Qatar eventually grounding 21 of its 53-strong A350 fleet after the local regulator revoked their airworthiness certificates and refusing to take delivery of new aircraft on order. In December the airline took the matter to the High Court in London, seeking compensation that now totals $700 million and counting. Airbus responded by canceling Qatar’s order for 50 of its popular A321 aircraft, plus two A350s— moves Airbus says it can do under its contract provisions, but Qatar disputes.