After 18 months of bitter fighting and $2 billion worth of lawsuits over A350 jets that Qatar said were dangerously damaged and Airbus said were just fine, the two companies have come to an “amicable and mutually agreeable settlement” of the matter.
The exact terms of that agreement and associated costs were not made public, and neither company admitted any liability, but both pledged too “move forward and work together as partners.” That includes not only remediation for the planes, but reinstatement of orders that Qatar canceled, and Airbus’s retaliatory cancelation of others.
The dispute involves surface deterioration of protective paint layers, resulting in pitting which Qatar and its state regulator say endangered the planes in flight. Other airlines have also had pitting but EU regulators have not called it unsafe. Airbus meanwhile shifted to another form of coating on planes being built now, and presumably will do so for the long-grounded Qatar planes.
