Qatar Airways has simply taken supply of its first Airbus A350 in nicely over two years, and that’s thrilling, for each the airline and passengers.
Qatar Airways welcomes its latest Airbus A350-1000
This morning (Saturday, Might 13, 2023), Qatar Airways’ latest Airbus A350 touched down in Doha. Particularly, the Airbus A350-1000 with the license plate A7-ANT flew from Toulouse (TLS) to Doha (DOH) in a flight time of 5hr52min, and the airplane landed at 4:21AM.
Whereas an airline taking supply of a single plane usually isn’t information, this one is noteworthy, because it’s the primary Airbus jet that Qatar Airways has taken supply of since December 2020.
That’s as a result of for a lot of the previous couple of years, Qatar Airways and Airbus had been engaged in a significant dispute concerning issues that the airline was having with its Airbus A350s.
This induced a significant challenge between the 2 firms — Qatar Airways grounded these jets over security issues and refused to take supply of extra plane till this was resolved, whereas Airbus claimed the problems had been beauty, and canceled Qatar Airways’ future plane order, over breach of contract.
Fortuitously the 2 firms reached a settlement in February 2023. This has a few main implications, past the 2 firms not suing each other:
- Qatar Airways can put its grounded Airbus A350s again into service
- Qatar Airways’ Airbus A350 order was reinstated, that means the airline will now take supply of 20+ extra A350s
The jet that Qatar Airways simply took supply of was produced in November 2021, so it’s round 18 months outdated. The airplane has been saved on the Airbus manufacturing unit ever since, as a result of this dispute. There are a number of extra A350s in Toulouse which might be supposed for Qatar Airways, which needs to be becoming a member of Qatar Airways’ fleet quickly (a few of these will likely be in a brand new high-density configuration).
Why these deliveries are thrilling for passengers
Qatar Airways is thought for its world class passenger expertise. The catch is that over the previous few years, Qatar Airways’ product has change into much less constant, given all of the planes which were grounded because of the dispute with Airbus. This has induced Qatar Airways to deliver again jets that had been speculated to be retired, and has additionally induced Qatar Airways to lease jets from different airways.
Airbus A350-1000s are Qatar Airways’ solely plane that solely have Qsuites enterprise class, which is among the greatest enterprise class merchandise on the earth. In order Qatar Airways continues to take supply of those planes, you’ll be able to anticipate extra passengers to get this expertise.
Qatar Airways has seen an enormous increase in demand lately, and Hamad Worldwide Airport has additionally been expanded. So I’m curious to see if the airline makes use of these new deliveries to develop, or will lastly retire a number of the older jets, just like the Airbus A330s and Boeing 777s.
Backside line
Qatar Airways has taken supply of its first Airbus A350 since December 2020. This marks the tip of the dispute between the Qatari nationwide provider and Airbus. Roughly 20 extra A350s ought to be a part of Qatar Airways’ fleet within the subsequent couple of years, resulting in a fantastic passenger expertise. I’m curious to see how Qatar Airways’ fleet evolves, and the way most of the older and leased jets stick round.
What do you make of Qatar Airways’ newest A350 supply?