Qatar Airways Group is sticking to its long-term plan of going public but will do so towards the end of the 2020s, Chief Executive Akbar Al Baker said during a conference, as reported by Reuters.

"If you want to invest your money, you will have to wait until the end of the decade in order to be able to invest in a Qatar Airways IPO," he said.

The parent holding of Qatar Airways (QR, Doha Hamad International) is wholly state-owned. The airline initially planned an IPO around 2010 but scrapped these ambitions due to the global financial crisis at that time. It revived them in 2017, hoping to go public within the next ten years, only for the ensuing COVID-19 pandemic to further complicate matters.

Al Baker previously said that Qatar Airways would only IPO after three consecutive profitable years. The holding's last profitable year was 2017 when it earned QAR2.8 billion rials (USD770 million). Subsequently, the group was hit by the air blockade of Qatar by its neighbours and then the pandemic, leading to net losses of QAR252 million (USD69.2 million) in 2018, QAR4.8 billion (USD1.3 billion) in 2019, QAR7 billion (USD1.9 billion) in 2020, and QAR14.9 billion (USD4.1 billion) in 2021.

Meanwhile, the London High Court judge granted minor victories to both Qatar Airways and Airbus in the ongoing legal battle over the deterioration of fuselage paint on the A350 jets.

Reuters said Judge David Waksman sided with the airline in pushing the dispute into a speedy trial that would potentially take place during a three-month window next summer, starting after June 2023. Waksman pointed out that there was considerable public interest in the proceedings. At the same time, he encouraged Airbus and Qatar Airways to use the time until June 2023 for "reflection" and to explore opportunities for a settlement.

"At the moment, this case looks unsettleable - that might change. The costs for both sides are way over the top in my judgment. There is far too much time that is being spent here," the judge said.

While Qatar Airways hailed the decision to move the proceedings to an accelerated trial, the court simultaneously denied the airline's request to split them into two: one concerned with the technical state of the aircraft and the other one with the status of future deliveries. The judge's decision means that Airbus remains at liberty to trigger payment clauses for not-yet-delivered aircraft in accordance with the contractual timeline and, if Qatar Airways continues to refuse to take deliveries, is free to resell the same slots to other carriers.

After the Qatari Civil Aviation Authority (QCAA) grounded all Qatar Airways' A350 in mid-2021 due to the alleged safety risk posed by the deterioration of fuselage paint, the airline refused to accept any more aircraft until the issue was solved. So far, it has missed the deliveries of three A350-1000s, which were promptly cancelled by Airbus and are reportedly a subject of negotiations with other customers. Qatar Airways retains orders for twenty more A350-1000s.