Qatar Airways is in talks with Airbus to convert its order for up to 80 A320neos to the larger A321neo, its CEO said on Monday.
The airline has refused to accept four A320neos so far this year over 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 said on the sidelines of a news 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.
An Airbus spokesman declined to comment when contacted by Reuters.
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 $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 Italy’s Meridiana, with which Qatar Airways is talking about taking a 49 percent stake, Al-Baker said.
Italy’s second biggest airline would have “nearly 50 aircraft” within the first five years of Qatar Airways’ stake purchase, he said. The fleet would be a mix of either Airbus or Boeing wide body jets and 737s.
Al-Baker told Bloomberg on Nov. 6 that he expected to finalize the stake purchase in January.
The deal is dependent on a number of unspecified conditions being met.
In Tehran, meanwhile, an Iranian official said Airbus delegates have arrived in Tehran for talks aimed at finalizing a deal to sell around 100 planes.
The representatives of the European aerospace giant arrived just hours after national carrier Iran Air concluded a $16.6 billion deal with US firm Boeing to buy 80 planes.
“An Airbus delegation has arrived in Tehran,” said Asghar Fakhrieh Kashan, deputy minister for transport.
“We have started negotiations and if there are no problems, we will sign the agreement within a week for the purchase of around 100 planes,” he said.
Some conservatives in Iran, meanwhile, reacted angrily to news of the deal with Boeing, which comes at a time when lawmakers in Washington have recently voted for renewed sanctions on the country.
Iran says the renewal of sanctions, which President Barack Obama is expected to approve in the coming days, is a breach of the nuclear deal it signed with world powers last year.
“60 trillion tomans: Iran’s gift to the US for violating the JCPOA (nuclear deal),” read Monday’s headline on the hard-line Javan newspaper.
But Iran has been desperate to access new planes and parts after decades of economic isolation has left it with one of the world’s worst aviation safety records.
Both Boeing and Airbus, which manufactures some of its parts in the US, were granted special permission from the US Treasury in September to go ahead with deals in Iran.

Source: Arab News