railways

Qatar Airways has grounded Airbus aircraft after discovering fuselages were “degrading at an accelerated rate”.

Some 13 Airbus A350s, which have a carbon composite body that makes them lighter and more fuel-efficient, have been taken out of the service, the state-owned airline said.

Daily Telegraph report

More info: The grounding marks an escalation of a row between the Middle East carrier and the European plane manufacturer. In June, Qatar raised concerns about the problem and refused to take delivery of another 23 A350s from Airbus until it had been fixed.

Qatar Airways, which has a fleet of 53 A350s, said: “Following the explicit written instruction of its regulator, 13 aircraft have now been grounded, effectively removing them from service until such time as the root cause can be established and a satisfactory solution made available to permanently correct the underlying condition.”

physicsdude

Explains why they pulled replaced a lot of A350 routes with 77Ws.

Can we know the tail numbers of the ones getting pulled from service?

crackjack

Interesting that they have specifically identified the regulator in their announcement. I know that it’s Qatar, and the airline is state sponsored and the regulator is on the other side, but this has to have some extra weight.

Then again, is there any public announcement by the regulator? The articles only seem to reference QR’s press release.

ISTFlyer

According to Planespotters;

A350-900

A7-ALA
A7-ALB
A7-ALC
A7-ALD
A7-ALE
A7-ALF
A7-ALG
A7-ALL
A7-ALT
A7-ALV
A7-ALW

A350-1000

A7-ANB
A7-ANC

I don't know if the information is accurate, though according to this thread: The Complete Guide to the Qatar Airways Fleet all the grounded A350-900's have the old 1-2-1 configuration in J.

roc83

wow why does only QR have the paint issue and we don't see any reports from other airlines such as SQ, CX?
I am also surprised FAA is not witch hunting Airbus for this - so if only the Qatar regulator is seeing this as a serious issue seems more like a negotiation game to get some more discounts

tfizzle

I just flew ATH-DOH and was scheduled for a A350 but got swapped out, thankfully for 777-300 with qsuites. Only 92 total passengers on board.

ISTFlyer

In the USA, only Delta has A350's and their oldest frame is 3 years old.
Qatar's oldest A350 is about 6.5 years old.

IAN-UK

Safety regulators don't get involved in commercial negotiations. Even in the close-knit world of Qatari aviation.

Al Baker could be over-egging the regulator's concerns, but I can't see him making them up.

Remember QR has a (relatively) old fleet, and the materials technology employed in this aircraft is (relatively) new.

roc83

The first paint issue was on a 4 year old plane, hence one which was delivered around 2016/2017. There are multiple airlines which have taken A350 deliveries even before that, like Finnair and Vietnam Airlines in 2015, SIA and CX in 2016. None of them have reported any severe issue at least not publicly. and if it is flight safety related one would assume that all regulators take actions if something is so severe that aircrafts have to be grounded

ph-ndr

Some commentary can be found here:
https://mentourpilot.com/qatar-a350-...-at-this-time/

It seems from this and other sources that EASA don't seem to find that this is a structural or safety related issue.

There has also been other voices that have been sceptical and to paraphrase them basically have said "I'll wait to see if either EASA or FAA wheighs in on this".

-A

roc83

yeah i also wait for reactions of other CAAs... i wouldnt count on EASA too much given that Airbus is based in Europe. like with Boeing case they might be the last to ground A/C. but FAA and the authorities for CX and SQ would be interesting to see how they assess the issue. I think SQ is today the largest A350 fleet operator.

cheltzel

I was looking around and found this site that has the actual delivery dates by airframe on the A350's. It seems that QR took delivery on the first four A350-900 airframes. VN took the next four or 5 and then two airlines seemed to split the next few A350-900 deliveries. AY took the 7th, 13th and 14th airframes and then took more a bit later on. If someone knows of a better source for this information, please let me know.

If there is a real structural issued with the early A350-900 airframes, I would expect the airlines that took the first 20 or 30 deliveries to report the issue. The airines seem to share this type of information among themselves and hopefully it will come out, if there is a real issue here. I agree with roc83 that the EASA might be somewhat slow to react on this, especially if the issue is easy to identify and resolve. I do not think that the regulators are totally immune from local political and/or economic influences.

oliver2002

Others (AY, CX, LH, etc) also had the issue, but they got Airbus to fix it (ie a strip, fix and repaint) and move on. Al-B seems to find pleasure in using it for upcoming negotiations.

Some pictures and background here:
https://www.reuters.com/business/aer...lf-2021-11-29/

realgaga

I saw multiple grounded A350s parked in HIA with the engine and cockpit window covers on Saturday.

ngfan

Me as well on Friday incl. A359 A7-ALP with wrapped wheels and window covers all around which is not on the list mentioned above.