On February 1st it was publicly announced that Qatar Airways and Airbus had settled their lengthy, ongoing legal battle over A350 surface degradation. During the dispute, Airbus had removed outstanding Airbus A350 orders by Qatar from its order books – reportedly a reaction to Qatar’s repeated refusal of deliveries. While orders were ‘canceled’ for a large portion of 2022, A350s built for Qatar Airways (but undelivered) remained in Airbus custody. With all canceled orders now reinstated, what’s happening with undelivered aircraft now?
Five aircraft assembled
Every large commercial airliner built has a specific customer attached to it. Whereas an automobile may be built without assurances that it will find a buyer, aircraft and the parts that comprise them have eager airlines waiting to take delivery. It’s this practice that can make it difficult to re-assign orders – especially after interiors have been installed to a specific airline’s specifications (although this hasn’t stopped Air India from taking Aeroflot’s A350s).
While we made some educated guesses regarding alternate customers for Qatar Airways’ undelivered (and then canceled) A350s, it looks like the jets will actually end up going to the oneworld alliance member. According to AIB Family Flights, there are at least five that have been fully assembled and painted in Qatar Airways livery. These airframes, all A350-1000s, are listed below, and include their most recent activities:
- A7-AOB (MSN 438): Ferried from Airbus’ Châteauroux storage site to Toulouse on February 22nd. The aircraft then underwent an engine run and taxi check on March 9th.
- A7-ANT (MSN 430): Ferried from Châteauroux to Toulouse on January 11th. Taxi check and rejected take-off testing (RTO) took place on February 9th, and again on March 7th.
- A7-AOA (MSN 409): This airframe has been stored at Toulouse during the entire dispute; Its latest activity took the form of a taxi check and RTO on February 28th.
- A7-AOC (MSN 440): Ferried from Châteauroux to Toulouse on January 25th.
- A7-AOD (MSN 444): Remains stored at Châteauroux. However, after no activity from mid-October 2022 to early January 2023, the jet had a test flight out of (and back to) Châteauroux, on January 11th.
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New action from the aircraft that started it all…
Based on a now-hidden Twitter post from a worker at Shannon Airport, our very first report of a Qatar Airways A350 experiencing cracks was posted in January 2021. This involved the A350-900 registered A7-ALL (MSN 036).
Delivered to Qatar Airways in 2016, the aircraft performed regular passenger services all the way up until 2020. Then, in November 2020, according to Planespotters.net data, the jet was ferried to Shannon (Ireland) and then to Toulouse. It’s generally understood that during the aircraft’s visit to Shannon for repainting, cracks were found, and this is what prompted the flight to Toulouse in January 2021.
As far as we know, the A350 has stayed in Toulouse ever since and has been fairly inactive over the past two years. However, AIB Family Flights notes that the jet was out for an engine run and taxi check on January 19th – a notable move after two years of inactivity.
It’s interesting to see so much happening for these aircraft in the past two months – particularly with some airframes leaving storage in the 2-3 weeks leading up to the announcement that the legal dispute had been settled. While the delivery of these twinjets might allow Qatar Airways to sadly park its active Airbus A380s for good, the delivery of the A350-1000s will mark an important step in the continued healing of Qatar Airways’ relationship with Airbus.
Are you excited to see these aircraft delivered? Share your thoughts by leaving a comment!
Sources: AIB Family Flights, FlightRadar24.com, Planespotters.net