Qatar Airways (QR, Doha Hamad International) says delays in the delivery of new aircraft from Airbus (AIB, Toulouse Blagnac) have forced it to scale back its network expansion plans. According to Reuters, the Qatari national carrier will reduce weekly frequencies on several routes this summer including: Adelaide International in Australia; Boston, Houston Intercontinental, and Miami International in the United States; Copenhagen Kastrup in Denmark; Jakarta Soekarno-Hatta in Indonesia; and Manchester International in the United Kingdom.
"We are minimising the impact on our passengers as much as possible, and accommodating them on other flights that suit their travel needs," the carrier said in a statement. "The flight cancellations are taking the form of one flight per week in most of the affected markets through the summer."
The carrier's much vaunted ultra-longhaul flights between Doha Hamad International and Auckland International, New Zealand have also been affected with their launch now pushed back to February 2017.
At a media conference in Adelaide last month, outspoken CEO Akbar al Baker blamed the slow rate of delivery of A350-900s for holding his airline back. While Qatar Airways' first A350-900 arrived in the Gulf in December 2014, only seven more have since been delivered.
“Qatar Airways is very picky when it comes to quality,” Al Baker was quoted by the Australian Business Times, “and if we find that our aircraft are not meeting the build standards that Qatar Airways will accept, we will not accept the deliveries.”
Airbus has in turn blamed the slow delivery rate on problems with the type's cabin elements - those manufactured and fitted by French firm Zodiac in particular. Similar problems, albeit affecting the aircraft galley areas, delayed the delivery of the airline's first A380-800s back in 2014.
The Qataris have a long track-record of calling out manufacturers for their failure to live up to predetermined delivery schedules and Boeing (BOE, Washington National) has not been exempt. In 2012, following the B787-8's well-documented early teething problems, al Baker disclosed plans to acquire over twenty A330s from Airbus to make up for delays in the Dreamliner's entry-into-service.
