Dubai: Qatar Airways, which has been looking to expand its freight business, will no longer be looking to convert its A330 passenger aircraft into freighters. The carrier may instead opt for older Boeing 767 planes, the carrier's chief executive, Akbar Al Baker, said on Tuesday.
Doha-based Qatar Airways said last May that it was looking to convert as many as 15 of its A330 passenger aircraft, from a total of nearly 30, to freighters, possibly by 2015, but now the carrier is considering opting for Boeing 767 freighters instead.
"We are soon going to start negotiations with Boeing for a large number of 767 conversions to freighters and we will place an order with Boeing as, unfortunately, Airbus is not making up its mind if they will convert our A330s to freighters or not," Al Baker said.
"So we will dispose of those A330s and instead, take up a large number of Boeing 767s for our short and medium haul freighter requirement."
He said in May that the airline was planning to convert A330s into freighters depending on the number of slots the carrier gets for the conversion from Airbus at their centre in Germany, adding that some of the 15 planes were likely to go into the airline's leasing arm.
Feasibility studies
Clarifying Airbus' position, Habib Fekih, president for the Middle East, told Gulf News: "We have the facility to do this. What we are doing just now is finalising some internal studies to see what volume and investment are required to do such a conversion. And we will get back to Al Baker with the figures and conditions for carrying out this exercise."
He added that Airbus will do the A330 freighter conversions for Qatar Airways if it's "feasible economically".
"Otherwise we will convince Al Baker to buy new [freighter] aircraft from us," said Fekih.
"But if there is a solution to convert this aircraft efficiently, we are not opposed to it."
