Qatar Airways Retires Airbus A330 Fleet, Sends Pilots To RwandAir, As Iran War Rages On

It has obviously been an incredibly rough year for airlines in the Gulf region, given the impact of the Iran war. It’s not just that local demand has decreased, but these airlines are also all about connecting people traveling between other regions of the world, and many people have been hesitant to transit the Middle East.

With demand down so much, Qatar Airways has just quietly retired a fleet type, and is even sending some of its pilots to go work in Rwanda…

Qatar Airways quietly dumps its Airbus A330 fleet

Reuters reports how Qatar Airways has just retired its passenger Airbus A330 fleet, which made up 7% of capacity at the airline as of earlier this year. In fairness, these planes were already near retirement before the war started, so this is hardly the most drastic move. For that matter, the planes were actually supposed to be retired years ago, but were kept due to delivery delays on other aircraft, so the airline needed them to meet demand.

Qatar Airways also started leasing four additional A330s from Oman Air last year, but the planes never actually entered service. Over the past couple of decades, Qatar Airways had 45 Airbus A330s, including 29 A330-200s and 16 A330-300s. They started to be delivered in 2002, but were phased out over time. With the A330s being retired, one can’t help but wonder how much life the small A380 fleet will have left…

In a statement, a Qatar Airways spokesperson said the airline regularly reviews its fleet, and “retiring older aircraft and introducing newer, more efficient aircraft as they are delivered” is a normal practice. It was also pointed out how the airline expects to receive 138 new aircraft over the next five years.

With the airline having an excess of pilots, Qatar Airways has also given some pilots the opportunity to work at RwandAir, which has longstanding ties with Qatar Airways. RwandAir even acquired an ex-Qatar Airways A330 earlier this year.

Regarding pilots moving from Qatar Airways to RwandAir, the airline spokesperson said “a group of Qatar Airways A330 pilots are being offered a voluntary short-term secondment opportunity with RwandAir.”

Qatar Airways also hasn’t been able to raise fares

Airlines across the globe have of course been grappling with the issue of much higher fuel prices, which are a massive expense for airlines. However, on a global basis:

• Demand has continued to remain robust, so at least there’s not an issue with filling planes
• Airlines have broadly been able to increase fares to largely offset their higher fuel bills, which helps avoid this being a full-on crisis across the board

Unfortunately in the case of Qatar Airways, they’re being screwed on both ends — they’re seeing a massive drop in demand, and they’re also unable to raise fares.

Skift recently reported on how Qatar Airways CEO Hamad Al-Khater said the carrier is not passing on increased fuel costs to customers. He commented that “we’re just kicking the can down the road from that side of things, and as a result, we just have to get used to this fuel price that’s higher.” He continued that “we don’t want to pass it to our customers just yet, that’s going to be an option of last resort, just because of the competitive landscape.”

Indeed, Qatar Airways isn’t keeping fares lower out of the kindness of its heart. I mean, any reasonable company would try to recoup higher costs. However, the issue is that when demand is down and many people are scared to travel through a region, trying to compete on price is one of the only options.

Frankly I’m a little confused by the “last resort” comments more broadly. Presumably the pricing decision is based on an analysis of the elasticity of demand. What is the “last resort” that would cause the airline to decide that significantly increasing pricing is the right move?

Not to make this political, but one certainly wonders how Qatar is feeling about its Boeing 747-8 gift to Trump, given how this war has impacted the country (including the national airline), with seemingly no exit strategy.

Bottom line

Qatar Airways is struggling at the moment due to a combination of reduced demand plus much higher costs — fortunately the carrier’s owner has very deep pockets. 😉 Nonetheless, Qatar Airways is taking action to protect the business, and that includes retiring the Airbus A330 fleet, which is no longer in passenger service. Given the excess pilots the airline has, some are even being sent to RwandAir.

While all airlines are suffering from higher jet fuel costs, Qatar Airways (and other carriers in the Gulf) haven’t really been able to raise fares due to the extent to which demand is down, so that’s a double whammy for them.

What do you make of Qatar Airways’ A330 retirement? Do you think we’ll see A380s retired soon as well?