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?<\/p>\n
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\u00a0Air India from taking Aeroflot’s A350s).<\/p>\n
While we made some\u00a0educated guesses regarding alternate customers\u00a0for\u00a0Qatar Airways’\u00a0undelivered (and then canceled) A350s, it looks like the jets will actually end up going to the\u00a0one<\/strong>world 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\u00a0A350-1000s, are listed below, and include their most recent activities:<\/p>\n\n