Airbus preparing for an independent legal assessment in response to customer disagreement over A350 surface degradation. Airbus said “In the face of the ongoing mischaracterisation of non-structural surface degradation on its fleet of A350 aircraft by one of its customers, it has become necessary for Airbus to seek an independent legal assessment as a way forward to resolve the dispute, which the two parties have been unable to settle during direct and open discussions.”
Airbus maintains that the surface paint-related findings “have been thoroughly assessed by Airbus and confirmed by the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) as having no airworthiness impact on the A350 fleet”.
The issue has been raised many times by Qatar Airways and as Airbus said, the two parties have been unable to reach any agreement on this issue. Airbus has now seemingly had enough of negotiations, describing the complaints by the customer and its public comments on the issue as misrepresenting the topic as an airworthiness issue that “represents a threat to the international protocols on safety matters”.
Airbus added that it has worked actively with its customers in order to minimise the impact and any inconvenience caused by this in-service surface degradation on the aircraft but noted that “these solutions have all been dismissed by the above-mentioned customer without legitimate justification”.
Airbus says that it is “working to re-establish a constructive dialogue with its customer on this matter but is not willing to accept inaccurate statements of this kind to continue”.
Furthermore, Airbus wishes to clarify that EASA’s recent proposed corrective steps caused by areas of missing expanded copper foil (ECF) on the wings of 13 A350s as a result of a production process, which has since been adapted, is different in nature. The limited number of aircraft will be inspected as per EASA’s directive.