Qatar Airways chief slams Boeing for 787 delays

DELAYS ANGER: Qatar Airway's CEO has slammed Boeing over the delays to the 787.

Qatar Airways chief Akbar Al Baker has hinted he may cancel the airline’s Boeing 787 order after growing increasingly frustrated with delivery delays.

The CEO blasted US aircraft manufacturer Boeing at the Paris Airshow, saying the company “is not run by commercial people but by bean counters and lawyers”.

He added the airline had “serious issues” with Boeing and warned the US company that it will be in for a “very, very serious surprise" if it fails to settle the 787 issue.

The Doha carrier has 60 Dreamliner 787s on order among the 92 aircraft bookings that it has lodged with Boeing. It is also expecting to receive 32 Boeing 777s from the US manufacturer as part of the total order.

But Boeing’s delivery schedule has been pushed back around 18 months, with the first batch of 787s now likely to reach customers in late 2011 at the earliest.

Al Baker’s frustrations in Paris were clear as the CEO hit out at Boeing, insisting Qatar Airways has the right to walk away from the deal due to unreasonable delays.

Responding to Al Baker’s comments, Boeing said it was making good progress with the 787 programme with the first flight expected soon.

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READERS' COMMENTS

Qatar Airways
Posted by The Don, Dubai, United Arab Emirates on Saturday 20 June 2009 at 10:05 UAE time


The whole business case for Qatar Airways of this size of operations/fleet is none existence due to the fact that there is no enough true origin & destination traffic between its home base and cities within its network to support buying first of all Airbus A380 and then the dreamliner B787.

The fact that an airliner like A380 or even the smaller ones like the B777 ER or B747-800 being capable to fly a none stop for 18 hours means that the transfer/transit portion for airlines like Qatar Airways will shrink to very low numbers with even thinner margins.

Qatar Airways chief have been busy in building a cut/paste airline model for Qatar and his venture is definitely for collapse if Government of Qatar close the money tap.

re: venu menon
Posted by Mubin, Manama, Bahrain on Thursday 18 June 2009 at 12:04 UAE time


I think its improper to judge Qatar Airlines by merely looking at passenger numbers at the boarding counter on a single day.

but i agree the service quality on Qatar Airlines is not upto the mark as that of Emirates / Etihad.

Yes, hurry will be there for the person who is paying for it not for a spectator for sure.

Qatar Airways chief slams Boeing for 787 delays
Posted by Venu Menon, Dubai, UAE on Thursday 18 June 2009 at 11:08 UAE time


Wonder what the hurry any ways is for Mr. Baker, Qatar Airways for all the buzz it creates about being the "Five Star Airlines" has hardly any passengers on any of its sectors.Recently flying from New York JFK on Emirates, I noticed Qatar Airways boarding New York-Doha at exactly the same time as Emirates.Both had 777-300ER on the sector, the only difference being the Emirates flight was nearly full and I saw hardly a handful of passengers waiting to board Qatar Airways... I know the Qatari Emir can afford to keep Qatar Airways afloat given his wealth... but this is insane and a clear case of good money being blatantly wasted or burnt...

Yes Boeing, enjoy the umble pie ...
Posted by Geriant, Dubai, UAE on Thursday 18 June 2009 at 08:20 UAE time


These are the very same Boeing folks who were uncontrolled in their glee when the A380 faced production problems. Al Baker can thump the table all he likes, but the fact is he was sold a doozy on this one. The 787 is untested, unknown and unhinged, and ordering 60 of the flops off a sales brochure wasn't very good business sense, now was it.

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