Qatar Airways (QR, Doha Hamad International) and Airbus aired their soiled A350 laundry in front of Boeing in court last week after the US aircraft manufacturer became involved in the messy legal row between the airline and the European plane builder.
Appearing before Justice David Waksman in the commercial division of the UK High Court on Friday, October 14, Boeing was in attendance to argue against Airbus obtaining access to a preliminary B737 MAX contract between itself and Qatar Airways. In July 2022, Qatar Airways ordered twenty-five B737-10s with options for 25 more after Airbus cancelled an order for fifty A321-200Ns earlier in the year.
Qatar Airways is suing Airbus over flaws in the A350's painted surface and damage to the aircraft's anti-lightning system. The ch-aviation fleets module shows the airline has thirty-four A350-900s and nineteen A350-1000s, however, twenty-two of the A350-900s and seven of the A350-1000s are parked, ostensibly due to surface damage. Qatar Airways had stopped taking delivery of any new A350s but in September, Airbus cancelled the remaining Qatar Airways A350s on order, with a number of those undelivered planes now parked at Toulouse Blagnac.
In a countersuit, Airbus sued Qatar Airways seeking USD220 million in damages and the return of a further USD185 million it had paid in credits to the airline to offset future aircraft orders. Those credits formed part of the original A350 deal, which now dates back over a decade.
Airbus is now asking where that USD185 million is and whether, per the original agreement, it went into pre-agreed funds to develop Qatar's aviation industry. Left unsaid, but potentially implied, is the possibility some or all of the credits went towards the MAX aircraft. Qatar Airways has always argued that the credits were spent as they were meant to be.
Through the court, Airbus has requested a range of documents from Qatar Airways, including Qatar Airways CEO Akbar Al Baker's emails and the MAX contract. The UK court ordered Qatar Airways to hand over the preliminary MAX contract. However, Boeing's lawyers objected to that decision last week, saying it would give internal Airbus legal personnel access to sensitive information.
"The disclosure of pricing information - that is dynamite," Boeing's Paul Stanley said. Justice Waksman subsequently ruled that the documents, including the contract, be split into categories, with access restricted to the documents containing the aircraft prices. The dispute between Qatar Airways and Airbus is scheduled for trial in June 2023.
