Qatar Airways, Airbus court hearing set for late April

The two companies have been locked in a row for months over A350 damage including blistered paint, cracked window frames or riveted areas and erosion of a layer of lightning protection. Qatar Airways says its national regulator has ordered it to stop flying 21 out of its 53 A350 jets as problems appeared, prompting a bitter dispute with Airbus which has said that while it acknowledges technical problems, there is no safety issue.

A rare lawsuit involving a claim by Qatar Airways for more than $600 million in compensation from Airbus over flaws on the surface of A350 jets is set for an initial hearing in the week of April 26, people familiar with the matter said. Barring a rapid settlement, experts say the dispute marks the first time in memory that a contractual and safety dispute between a planemaker and large airline threatens to come to open court, potentially airing technical and commercial decisions.

The date for a procedural hearing was set in a division of the High Court in London on Thursday. Airbus and Qatar Airways had no comment on the case which has left a question mark over 23 A350s yet to be delivered and doubts over a separate order for 50 A321s, which industry sources say Airbus may refuse to implement amid the A350 row.

Airbus believes it has terminated the A321 contract, according to a preliminary filing reported by Bloomberg. It remains unclear whether Qatar Airways, which has said it needs the jets, will oppose any efforts to cancel the A321 deal. The two companies have been locked in a row for months over A350 damage including blistered paint, cracked window frames or riveted areas and erosion of a layer of lightning protection.

Qatar Airways says its national regulator has ordered it to stop flying 21 out of its 53 A350 jets as problems appeared, prompting a bitter dispute with Airbus which has said that while it acknowledges technical problems, there is no safety issue. Qatar Airways is seeking $618 million in compensation for the 21 grounded jets plus $4 million a day as the row drags on.

The Gulf carrier is also asking British judges to order France-based Airbus not to attempt to deliver any more of the jets until what it describes as a design defect has been fixed. Airbus has said it will "deny in total" the complaint and has accused Qatar Airways, once one of its most highly courted customers, of mislabelling the problem as a safety concern.

It has indicated it will argue that state-owned Qatar Airways influenced its regulator to ground the jets to win compensation, while Qatar Airways has questioned the design and accuses Airbus of failing to produce studies, the people said. Qatar Airways has said its local regulator is independently driving safety decisions and cannot evaluate the airworthiness of the affected jets without a deeper analysis from Airbus.

The European Union Aviation Safety Agency has said it has not so far uncovered any evidence of airworthiness problems. Qatar is so far the only country to ground some of the jets.

But a Reuters investigation https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/costly-airbus-paint-flaw-goes-wider-than-gulf-2021-11-29 in November revealed at least five other airlines had discovered paint or surface flaws since 2016, prompting Airbus to set up an internal task force before the Qatar row and to explore a new A350 anti-lightning design.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)