Qatar Airways set for Paris Air Show order

Qatar Airways plans to place an aircraft order at the Paris Air Show and, separately, is looking to further develop its aircraft leasing business. “We will order more aircraft in Le Bourget,” Qatar Airways CEO Akbar Al Baker said. The manufacturer and aircraft types would not be announced until the June 17-23 show, he said. “We don’t have any gaps in our fleet at the moment. What we are trying to do is to order more aircraft to enhance the fleet that we already have. The strategy of Qatar Airways is to keep our average fleet age young, hence we need to keep ordering aircraft as our aircraft exit our fleet,” he said. Responding to a question from ATW, Al Baker said he plans to further develop Qatar Airways’ aircraft leasing business. The airline already has “a very strong leasing company,” he said, although most of the aircraft are leased back into its own operation. “We have started to lease aircraft out and we have aircraft with three airlines at the moment, one of them is our sister company Air Italy, in which we hold a minority shareholding.”<br/>