Qatar Airways: major Boeing purchase

Qatar Airways increases its fleet by purchasing 30 Dreamliner 787-930 aircrafts and 10 777-300ER aircrafts at a list price of 11.7 billion dollars. More, the airline company also signed a letter of intent for 60 737 MAX 8 aircrafts valued at a list price of 6.9 billion dollars.

Qatar Airways will take its first Max in 2018, Akbar Al Baker, CEO of Qatar Airways declared in an interview. He insisted the decision to pivot to the rival Boeing model wasn’t intended as retaliation against the European plane maker. “There is no message to Airbus,” he said. “We don’t send messages by aircraft purchases to each other.”

The relationship between Qatar Airways and Boeing was renewed in 2006. Since then, there have been several milestones in the partnership: Qatar Airways was the first airline which operated the 787 aircraft in the Middle East and will also be the first to use a Boeing 777X. Moreover, after completing the order for 737 MAX 8, it would be the first model of Boeing single-aisle fleet that joins Qatar Airways in over 15 years. The transaction also provided a vote of confidence in the Boeing jet, which is on pace to begin commercial service months ahead of schedule in the second quarter next year.

Still, Qatar Airways intends to follow through on a 2011 order for 50 Airbus A320neo and A321neo planes, which have a combined value of $6.4 billion at list prices, Al Baker said. He added that the delays left him with “no alternative” but to order the “reliable” Boeing narrow-body planes.

Qatar Airways, the airline of the state of Qatar, has a fleet of 190 aircraft serving over 150 destinations for business and vacation on six continents.