Qatar Airways is considering legal action to claw back the additional operating costs it’s running up after neighbouring states in the Persian Gulf excluded it from their airspace, a crisis the carrier’s chief likened to the Soviet blockade of West Berlin. The airline is keeping tabs on the business impact of its higher fuel bill after the barriers imposed by Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt shut down 52 routes and forced remaining services into diversions ranging from 5 minutes to 2 hours, Qatar Air CE Akbar al Baker said. The restrictions have doubled the flying time on some routes, he said. Qatar Air is “making sure that all our business streams are properly documented in order for us in future to go to international tribunals to reflect the pain,” Al Baker said Monday. <br/>
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Qatar Airways has firmed up an order for 20 Boeing 737 MAX jets and is awaiting the outcome of possible expansion in Italy and India before deciding whether to exercise further options, the carrier's CE said Monday. Qatar Airways signed a letter of intent for up to 60 narrowbody 737 MAX 8 jets, worth US$6.9b at list prices, last year. "We have another 40 options and purchase rights, which we could exercise depending on the way forward with both Meridiana and our Indian carrier," Akbar Al Baker said Monday. Qatar Airways has been in talks over a stake in Meridiana and is planning to set up a domestic airline in India. Al Baker also said Qatar Airways was not interested in larger variants of the 737 MAX because it was ordering A321neo jets. <br/>
Bombardier’s marquee C Series jet, which hasn’t won a major new contract in more than a year, got a boost from interest at Qatar Airways and Air Baltic and from a new jet-leasing venture between the planemaker’s largest outside shareholder and GE. The single-aisle model could be suited to an Indian operation that Qatar Air has won permission to establish, the carrier’s CE, Akbar Al Baker, said Monday. AirBaltic said the first jets from an order for 20 CS300s have outperformed fuel-burn targets and confirmed it is progressing with an evaluation of the smaller CS100 variant. Qatar Air said in March that it aims to set up a short-haul airline in India with a fleet of 100 narrow-body planes as its renews a push to tap one of the world’s fastest-growing travel markets. <br/>
American Airlines has canceled 38 flights in and out of Phoenix Tuesday afternoon because of extreme heat. The cancellations are for operations by smaller regional jets that have lower maximum operating temperatures than full-size airliners. Those jets can't operate when it's 118 degrees or above. American warned passengers over the weekend that it may have to ground flights during a heat wave that could send the temperature soaring to near 120 degrees. A spokesman says the late afternoons are the peak affected times. The airline is letting Phoenix passengers flying during the peak heat Monday through Wednesday to change flights without a fee. The forecast calls for a high of 119 Tuesday. Extreme heat creates changes in the air density that make it harder for airplanes to take off. <br/>