LONDON – The High Court in the UK has ruled that Airbus is free to deliver the remaining A350s left on order to Qatar Airways or can find other buyers for the jets.
This concludes the part of the lawsuit over surface erosion claims, to which Qatar Airways is seeking $618m, and has added $4m for every day that 21 of its A350s remain on the ground.
Such a ruling is opposite to what the court made around a month ago where it was ruled Airbus didn’t have to supply the airline with A321neo aircraft, to which the airline had 50 on order.
This ultimately resulted in Qatar Airways placing an order for the Boeing 737 MAX instead to replace those aircraft.
Air India’s $10bn Order Looking More Likely…
With that ruling in mind, it does ramp up the solid perspective that Air India’s $10bn order for widebody Airbus aircraft could come a lot sooner than you think.
The engine maker for the Airbus A350 has stated that these efforts will lead TATA group-led Air India to equip its fleet with ultramodern wide-body jets to retain its international traffic flows and rankings.
Speaking on this occasion at Wings India in Hyderabad, Senior Vice President of Rolls-Royce Asia Pacific Chris Davie stated:
“I think they are looking at something up to 30 aircraft, could be as big as that, which is a big order. A really big order.”
The newly acquired debt-laden national carrier of India has tremendous potential in the regional and international markets given India’s emergence as the fastest-growing aviation market.
Air India is looking to order around 30 A350s from the European planemaker.
Chris Davie has declined to further disclose any details of the deal but stated that his team has been a part of the Airbus entourage when the A350 was on showcasing event across many Indian cities.
Airbus has ramped up its efforts to boost the sales figures for the A350 aircraft through local airliners in the European continent and beyond with specific attention to developing aviation markets in Asia such as India.
Small Win for Airbus…
In the court ruling, motions were approved on the Qatar Airways side to split the trial into two parts to enable Airbus to further research the surface erosion on the aircraft.
Within that, Qatar Airways wanted to ensure that no further deliveries of the A350 occurred until the fixes had been made, but the court rejected this as well.
The airline said the following on the ruling:
“Qatar Airways is pleased with the judgment given by the High Court today. We entered into this process to secure an expedited trial and early disclosure from Airbus that will give us an insight into the true nature of surface degradation affecting the A350s.”
“We are extremely pleased to have secured these in today’s judgment. We will finally be able to assess the cause of the damage to our aircraft and the expedited trial will provide a swift resolution to this unprecedented dispute.”
“Qatar Airways remains committed to its collective mission to achieve “Excellence in everything that we do,” at all levels across our airline. Our commitment to the safety and security of our passengers and crew remains at the core of everything we do.”
This does offer a small win for Airbus, as it can continue delivery of the aircraft as this argument continues between the two sides.
Either way, there aren’t entirely winners in this case just yet, as it is still unclear whether Qatar Airways will get the damages it is wanting, and that is going to be the deciding factor in this battle.
