Boeing: Qatar Airways has placed 787 order

Qatar Airways has refused to confirm the 787 order.

Boeing has confirmed that Qatar Airways has placed an order for its new long-haul 787 Dreamliner aircraft.

The US aviation giant said on Monday that the Gulf airline is a 787 customer, but would not give any further details about the size of the order or when the aircraft will be delivered.

“I can confirm they are a 787 customer,” a spokesperson for Boeing told ArabianBusiness.com.

The admission brings to an end months of speculation about whether Qatar Airways, which operates an all-Airbus fleet, had place an order for Boeing’s new carbon-composite and titanium jetliner - the first of which rolled off the production line on Sunday.

Despite Boeing’s announcement, Qatar Airways is officially still refusing to confirm whether it is customer, with a spokesperson saying on Monday the airline had “no comment to make”.

However, a Qatar Airways executive has confirmed to Gulf News that the airline has placed an order for 30 787s.

A $5 billion order for that number of Dreamliners was recorded on Boeing’s online order book in April, made by an unidentified customer.

It has been widely reported that Qatar Airways is the mystery buyer, despite its silence on the matter.

Qatar Airways already has 22 Boeing 777 minijumbos on order and Qatar Airways CEO Akbar Al-Baker has previously said the two companies are in talks about ordering more aircraft.

The airline currently has an all-Airbus fleet of 58 planes, and at the Paris Air Show last month announced it was to purchase 80 Airbus A350s and increase its A380 order from three to five in a deal worth around $16 billion.

It was expected that Qatar Airways would unveil its 787 order at the show as well, but some have speculated the announcement was delayed so as not to steal the spotlight away from the Airbus order.

It is now thought the airline will wait until the Dubai Airshow before officially announcing the order.

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READERS' COMMENTS

40 Not 30!
Posted by Jalal Yaqoub, Sanaa, Yemen on Tuesday 10 July 2007 at 08:00 UAE time


In fact, the number stated on the Orders and Deliveries Book http://active.boeing.com/commercial/orders/ is 40 787's for "Unidentified" not 30 as mentioned in the article. If the $5 bn calculation is correct this would make it, in fact, a $6.6 bn deal.

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