Qatar Airways CEO Akbar Al Baker said the airline remains interested in Bombardier’s C Series aircraft but has had to put off placing an order while it assesses the benefits of other aircraft such as the Airbus A319neo. The delay, he stressed, was not because of the argument with the Canadian government over extending Qatar Airways’ landing rights in the country. He said: “We don’t use commercial issues” as a lever to win concessions from governments.
Qatar Airways wants to expand flight service across Canada, but the Canadian government and the airline industry are blocking this in fear of the effect it could have on Air Canada. Al Baker called the protestations over allegedly unfair practices by state-subsidized Gulf carriers are “a tactic to stifle competition.”
Air Canada spokesman Peter Fitzpatrick was reported in the local press that “the current bilateral arrangements allow for more than adequate capacity to carry all point-to-point traffic between our two countries”.