Qatar Airways has grounded 13 of its Airbus A350 fleet,
citing an accelerated degradation of the fuselage surface below the paint,
as the reason for the move. Let’s take a look at this issue and how serious it might be…
Recently the airline’s CEO, Akbar Al Baker, has had particularly strong
words about the A350 fleet, going as far as to stop further deliveries of the type.
Commenting on the issue, an Airbus spokesperson told Simple Flying,
“As a leading aircraft manufacturer we are always in talks / working with our customers.
Those talks we keep confidential. We have no further comment on our customer’s operations.”
According to the airline,
13 of its A350s have suffered accelerated surface degradation below the paint scheme.
The jet is a composite fuselage as opposed to the traditional aluminum fuselage of older aircraft.
According to Qatar Airways, it has been working closely with the Qatari aviation
regulator regarding the aircraft. The regulator has now issued quote unquote ‘explicit written
instructions’ to ground the 13 aircraft affected by the issue. The aircraft will remain grounded
until the cause of the degradation is established, and a permanent fix has been made possible.
The story seems to have started back in November 2020 when the airline sent a
four-year-old A350-900 to Shannon, Ireland. The paint shop was due to apply a livery celebrating
next year’s football world cup in Qatar. However, when the paint was stripped off,
cracks were found on the aircraft surface. Airbus later clarified that these were quote
“superficial/cosmetic and only visible when the top coat of paint is stripped”.
In early January the aircraft was ferried to Toulouse without a paint scheme applied
so that it could undergo further examination. The aircraft has remained there since,
and it seems as though this is what has been observed on the other 12 aircraft too.
Around the start of June, the airline threatened to stop taking delivery of the type,
although Al Baker said that the issue wasn’t to do with paint jobs.
Just days later on June 8th, Qatar Airways made the call to stop future A350 deliveries. Since
then, the CEO has been fairly tight-lipped on what exactly was the issue with the type.
Even as recently as July 21st, Al Baker refused to reveal the issue but had clear words for Airbus:
“Unfortunately I cannot get into the details… [Airbus] are ignoring the fact that there is a
serious issue with our problems that we are facing with [the A350s]. they are just trying to dilly
dally and drag their feet instead of becoming real and solving the problem that their airplane has.”
So far it is only Qatar that has had to ground aircraft. There have been no suggestions that
any other carriers have been affected so far. The airline has partnerships with a
number of other A350 operators, holding shares of the International Airlines Group, and LATAM.
When asked if he would speak to his partner A350 operators about the issue,
Al Baker was quoted as saying: “I don’t want to influence any of those airlines,
we are just a strategic shareholder. When they know that Qatar Airways has an issue,
of course, it raises their eyebrows too. They will want to know what this problem is because
they also are flying those same airplanes.” Qatar Airways was the launch customer for
both the -900 and the -1000. The airline has so far taken delivery of 34 of the
-900, and 19 of the -1000 with a further 23 of the larger Airbus A350-1000 still on order.
While it isn’t confirmed that these are the aircraft involved in the grounding,
ch-aviation.com lists 11 A350-900s as stored, alongside two -1000s.
One of these -900s is, A7-ALL, the aircraft in Toulouse is listed as being in Maintenance.
The oldest aircraft listed as stored is a 6.81-year-old -900, registered A7-ALA,
the first A350 to be delivered to Qatar Airways, Earlier this week Simple Flying reported that
Qatar Airways was in the process of reactivating its Airbus A330 fleet.
It now seems that we know why. The airline revealed that it is doing all it can to make
sure customers aren’t impacted by the issues. What do you make of the news that Qatar Airways
has grounded 13 Airbus A350 aircraft? Let us know what you think and why in the comments below!