Qatar Air Expects To Receive First A350 Early

Qatar Airways, the launch customer for the Airbus A350, expects to receive its first aircraft ahead of scheduled delivery in December 2014, the company's chief executive said on Wednesday.

"They (Airbus) are well ahead of the test schedule," said Akbar Al Baker at the Singapore Airshow, adding that the aircraft could arrive a month or two early.

The fast-growing Doha-based full-service carrier has 43 A350-900s and 37 A350-1000s on order.

Al Baker added that patience was running thin with Bombardier's troubled CSeries aircraft. While Qatar has a requirement in the 120-160 seat category, the program's delays and lack of orders could lead to the airline looking elsewhere.

"We have told them that we will only be interested in talking to them again once they have sold 300 aircraft," said Al Baker. "People like us are not going to indefinitely wait for the aircraft program to mature."

He also said that the airline was not interested in Airbus's offer of a higher take-off weight "regional" A330, or Boeing's 787-10 or 777-8X.

The airline also has 50 Boeing 777-9s on order, but it is not keen on the smaller 777-8, said Al Baker.

(Reuters)

http://news.airwise.com/story/view/1392206166.html

Ali Al-Baker es un personaje muy curioso. El año pasado Al-Baker decía "No vamos a comprar el CSeries antes que el avión haga su primer vuelo. Unos días después del primer vuelo estaba "No vamos a comprar el avión antes que haya al menos 300 oficialmente vendidos. Y eso es sin olvidar su amenaza de no comprar el CSeries si Qatar no obtenía los derechos de volar a Canadá. Qatar vuela a Montreal desde unos 24 meses ahora. Cuando hará 300 aviones vendidos, ¿que será la nueva exigencia de Al-Baker? "¿No vamos a comprar el CSeries antes que él puede volar a la luna?"

Pues desde la primera excusa se ve que el señor no tiene intenciones serias,
¿porqué va a confiar en ese número mágico de 300 aviones comprados? Mejor hubiera dicho: "lo estamos analizando y dependiendo del performance daremos una opinión"