Qatar Airways has secured a court injunction it says will protect it against “future attempts by Airbus to suggest that it is unable to comply” with the terms of an A321 order cancelled by the airframer in January. The Gulf carrier has voiced its frustration about Airbus’s termination of the 50-unit A321neo order, saying in January that the narrowbody deal, “an entirely separate” matter from the A350 surface deterioration at issue, was being used to escalate the dispute. Under an injunction issued by the UK High Court on 18 February, the airline says, “Airbus must not do anything between the date of the order [December 2017] and a further hearing in April that would adversely affect its ability to comply with any court order that Qatar Airways might obtain in relation to the purported cancellation of the A321 contract”. Airbus says: “The court required only that the parties do nothing that would materially change the situation between the date of the hearing and 6 April.” Regarding the A321neo order termination in January, Airbus argues that it “had to make the decision” to cancel the contract because it was “driven by the mandates of the legal process initiated by [Qatar Airways]”. The same applies to the cancellation of two A350-1000 delivery slots, after Qatar Airways elected not to pick up two completed aircraft of the type in 2021, Airbus says. It insists that the cancellations came “as a last resort and followed many fruitless attempts to find mutually beneficial solutions”. Qatar Airways has refused to take delivery of further A350s until the surface deterioration dispute has been resolved. Meanwhile, the airline says that it has since December 2021 been ordered by the Qatar Civil Aviation Authority (QCAA) to ground the 22nd aircraft in Qatar Airways’ 53-strong A350 fleet because of the surface issue. Qatar Airways says the regulator ordered the withdrawal because the “accelerated surface degradation condition… is beyond the tolerance limits set by Airbus”. “The QCAA will not allow these aircraft to return to service until a full and conclusive root-cause analysis has been completed, the impact on continuing airworthiness has been established and a solution been found to permanently correct the root cause and repair the damage.” Qatar Airways’ legal action is aimed at compelling Airbus “to fully, properly and transparently investigate” the surface deterioration issue and establish a “conclusive and full root cause” for it. Additionally, the airline is seeking compensation from Airbus for the grounding of aircraft. In its defence and counterclaim filed at the UK High Court’s technology and construction division, Airbus acknowledges that paint on composite aircraft “may degrade more rapidly than on metal aircraft and that they may therefore need more frequent repainting and/or surface maintenance”. But the airframer says the degradation affects the paint alone and not the airframe’s structural integrity. “The potential for faster surface degradation on aircraft manufactured from composite materials is not a design defect in composite aircraft generally – or the A350 in particular,” it says. “The underlying root cause”, the airframer adds, “is the difference between the thermal expansion coefficients of the constituent elements of the composite skin and the surface layers on top of the composite skin”, which results in higher stresses and can lead to surface paint cracking. “The differences in thermal contraction and expansion are inherent in the selection of [carbonfibre-reinforced plastic] for the airframe (since the thermomechanical properties of the CFRP cannot be changed, through any ‘repair solution’ or otherwise).” Airbus suggests operators must accept “the potential need for more frequent surface repair and maintenance” and see the associated cost “alongside the benefits of composite aircraft, as compared with metal aircraft, such as lower weight and improved fuel efficiency”. The airframer’s defence and counterclaim cites the inspection of a Qatar Airways A350-900 (A7-ALL), a 2016-built specimen on which the surface deterioration issue was first discovered in late 2020 when the widebody was stripped at an Irish facility, in Shannon, to be repainted in preparation for the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar. Airbus says that both its own engineering team and the European Union Aviation Safety Agency – the A350 primary certification authority – have “each independently concluded” that the findings “do not affect the airworthiness” of the aircraft and “do not reflect any ‘defect’ in the design or manufacture of the A350”. As part of repainting preparations for MSN 36, the aircraft underwent chemical paint stripping and mechanical abrasion that went “beyond” its recommendations, says Airbus. “At least some of these eight findings were significantly caused and/or contributed to by the stripping and/or abrasion process.” Airbus argues that the QCAA suspended airworthiness review certificates for A350s in Qatar Airways’ fleet on an “erroneous basis”, and points out that the regulator “continues to permit A350s operated by other airlines to fly into Qatar and to fly through Qatari airspace without additional restrictions”. The airframer adds: “No other [regulatory] agency and no other airline has similarly grounded A350 aircraft on the basis of surface degradation issues.” The US Federal Aviation Administration tells says it is “aware of the issue”, but says EASA will take the lead on its handling as the certifying authority for the A350. A similar enquiry to the UK Civil Aviation Authority has not yet drawn a response. Airbus contends that “any reasonable airline would accept” maintenance solutions the airframer has developed to address the “issues raised by QTR [Qatar Airways]” and that “other airlines have accepted” these solutions.

The USA has closed its airspace to all Russian flights, president Joe Biden announced during the 2022 State of the Union Address, held on 1 March at 21:00 EST. "Tonight I am announcing that we will join our allies in closing off American airspace to all Russian flights – further isolating Russia – and adding an additional squeeze on their economy," Biden said. "The ruble has lost 30% of its value." Biden also committed to enforcing powerful economic sanctions on Russia, alongside the USA's European allies. "We are cutting off Russia's largest banks from the international financial system, preventing Russia’s central bank from defending the Russian ruble making [Russian president Vladimir] Putin’s $630 billion 'war fund' worthless," Biden said. "We are choking off Russia’s access to technology that will sap its economic strength and weaken its military for years to come." Key European platforms have acted to cut Russia off from the global financial system, following economic sanctions directed at Russia's invasion of Ukraine, announced by the European Union in recent days. Earlier in the day on 1 March, clearing houses Euroclear and Clearsteam began ceasing and exiting Russian ruble-denominated transactions. Belgium-based SWIFT, which enables cross-border transactions between banks, said it was awaiting instructions from authorities seeking to cut ties with Russian banks. Data shows that in 2021, over 97% of tracked commercial passenger flights by Russian operators were destined for Europe and less than 1% were headed for North America.

British Airways has been forced to cancel more than 500 flights over the past three days because of a major IT outage at London Heathrow on 25 February. The IAG-owned carrier says it plans to operate its normal schedule on 28 February and is “working hard to make sure our customers are able to seamlessly travel through the airport to get them on their way as quickly as possible”. It adds that the outage was caused by hardware issue and not a cyber attack. On 26 February, BA cancelled all short-haul services from Heathrow as it sought to prioritise long-haul operations. BA has a troubled history of being impacted by IT issues, with incidents in 2017 and 2019, and a 2018 hack of customer account details, for which it was fined £20 million ($27 million). “This issue needs to seriously addressed by the management team,” writes Goodbody aviation analyst Mark Simpson, “with the fact that four such incidents looks more like underinvestment rather than ‘carelessness’.”