American Airlines said Thursday that it would fly fewer international flights next summer than it had planned because it was waiting for Boeing to address quality concerns and restart delivering the 787 Dreamliner jet. The disclosure, made in a securities filing, is the latest sign that Boeing is struggling to overcome quality and other problems that have eroded its credibility and led to the ouster of its chief executive. The manufacturer’s troubles have also hurt its customers who cannot easily buy planes from another producer. Boeing has just one main rival, Airbus, and that company has a long backlog of orders. American was expecting 13 new Dreamliners this winter, but Boeing has delayed deliveries of all of those planes. The manufacturer has said that the disruption to the production of 787 planes will cost it about $1b. Boeing had paused deliveries of the plane briefly last year and again in May as it worked with the FAA to address the quality concerns. The company slowed production of the plane over the summer and suffered another setback in October, when a supplier to Boeing said that it had provided parts that were made with the wrong titanium alloy. “We deeply regret the impact to our customers as we work through the process to resume deliveries of new 787s,” Boeing said. The Dreamliner is a wide-body plane with two aisles in the cabin, allowing the airlines to fly more passengers on longer flights. The delays have forced American to cancel plans to bring back flights to Edinburgh and Shannon, Ireland and seasonal flights to other destinations such as Dubrovnik, Croatia, and Prague, the airline said. American also said it would significantly reduce service to cities in Asia and Australia and delay plans to start nonstop flights from Seattle to Bangalore, India. “Without these widebodies, we simply won’t be able to fly as much internationally as we had planned next summer or as we did in summer 2019,” Vasu Raja, the airline’s chief revenue officer, said in a note to staff that was made public in the securities filing. Despite the delays, Raja said American was standing by the Boeing plane.<br/>
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The union for American Airlines Group pilots said the carrier will violate its contract by scheduling “graveyard shift” flight simulator training sessions as it works to ready 440 pilots being added this year. American detailed plans for the sessions, which would begin after midnight, in a message to pilots, saying the temporary measure starting in January will allow it to step up training for newly hired aviators and those doing “qualification training” to move to a new aircraft type. It plans to use the so-called E sessions only at its hub in Charlotte, North Carolina, and at the American Airlines Flight Academy at Greater Southwest International Airport in Fort Worth, Texas. “Our new hires are on probation, so they are taking advantage of that unrepresented class of pilot, and that’s a horridly challenging time to try to train, even for our pilots going through qualification training,” Dennis Tajer, an Allied Pilots Association spokesman, said Wednesday. The E sessions will account for about 5% of overall pilot simulator training, American said in the Dec. 3 note from Lori Cline, managing director of flight training and standards. The carrier has used such sessions before, and the plan falls within contract provisions allowing them, American said Thursday. It plans to use the E sessions only until new simulators are installed and brought online. The union told members in a message that it doesn’t believe such training complies with its contract, but in any case it “is not a good idea.” A supplement to the pilots’ agreement specifies simulator training can’t be scheduled between 12:45 a.m. and 5:30 a.m. except for a specific type, and then is only allowed when no other four-hour period outside of those hours is available, the union said.<br/>
Airbus has escalated a long-running dispute with one of its largest customers, saying it will seek an independent legal assessment of claims by Qatar Airways about the quality of surfaces on its A350 widebody aircraft. The European aeroplane maker did not name the Qatari carrier, but referred to recent claims about the quality of the paint and other surface issues on the A350. Akbar Al Baker, CE of Qatar Airways, has repeatedly hit out at Airbus over the issue, saying last month that it was a “serious matter, we don’t know if it is an airworthiness issue, we also don’t know that it is not an airworthiness issue”. The airline operates 53 A350s, although 20 of the jets have been grounded on the instructions of the Qatari Civil Aviation Authority. Qatar has another 23 on order but has halted further deliveries during the dispute. Singapore Airlines is the biggest operator of the A350. Airbus has maintained that the surface-degradation issues are non-structural, an assessment that has been backed by the European Union Aviation Safety Agency. “The attempt by this customer to misrepresent this specific topic as an airworthiness issue represents a threat to the international protocols on safety matters,” the company said on Thursday. Airbus said it regretted the decision but insisted it had become “necessary to defend its position and reputation”, adding that the A350 was performing well in service. The company said it was also working to “re-establish a constructive dialogue with its customer on this matter but is not willing to accept inaccurate statements of this kind to continue”.<br/>