Qatar Airways Wants to Swap Airbus A320neos for A321neos, New Delivery Date

Qatar Airways is in talks with Airbus to convert its order for up to 80 A320neos to the larger A321neo, its chief executive said on Monday.
The Middle East airline has refused to accept four A320neos so far this year over claims of performance issues with the aircraft's engines, a spokeswoman told Reuters.

"We are in negotiations with Airbus about how we can continue our relationship and keep our order on track minus the ones that we canceled," CEO Akbar al-Baker told Reuters on the sidelines of a press conference in Doha.
He said the airline wanted to take delivery of the larger A321neo jets from 2018 and was considering swapping the engine order to CFM, a joint venture between General Electric Co and Safran SA of France.
Qatar Airways has refused to accept planes with engines made by Pratt & Whitney, a unit of United Technologies Corp, saying they required additional time to start under certain conditions.
The airline said in May it was cutting frequencies on more than a dozen routes from its Doha hub because of delivery delays of new aircraft from Airbus.
Qatar Airways announced on Oct. 7 an order for as much as $18.6 billion worth of Boeing jets, including a letter of intent for 60 narrow body 737 MAX 8 jets valued at US$6.9 billion.
The A320 and 737 compete in the largest segment of the aircraft market.
At least some of those 737 MAXs will go to Meridiana, to which Qatar Airways is talking over taking a 49 percent stake, Al Baker said.

Tom Finn, Reuters

Photo:Qatar