Qatar Airways retires idle A330s and sends pilots to RwandAir as Iran war drags on

Qatar Airways aircraft parked at Teruel Airport in Spain in March 2026, as the US-Israeli conflict with Iran has badly disrupted travel patterns in the region.

LONDON – Qatar Airways has retired its last Airbus A-330 passenger jet and seconded some pilots to Rwanda’s flag carrier as the prolonged Iran war disrupts Gulf aviation and accelerates the global phase-out of older jets, according to two people with knowledge of the matter and data reviewed by Reuters.

The move is the latest sign of the impact of a doubling of jet fuel prices since the war began, ending an industry-wide scramble for older jets to meet post-Covid travel demand.

Qatar Airways leased four Airbus wide-body A-330 jets from Oman Air in 2025 and planned to keep flying them through 2026, but the aircraft never entered service, the people said. The carrier has now fully retired its A-330 fleet.

One of the A-330s was acquired earlier in 2026 by Rwandan flag carrier RwandAir. Qatar Airways has longstanding ties to the airline and the people said a group of pilots, some of whom had not flown commercially since the start of the war, have been seconded to RwandAir.

The secondments and details of the fleet retirements have not previously been reported.

A Qatar Airways spokesperson said it was normal for the airline to regularly review its fleet, “retiring older aircraft and introducing newer, more efficient aircraft as they are delivered”. In the next five years it expects to receive 138 new aircraft, the spokesperson added.

The carrier operates a mixed Airbus and Boeing fleet of 239 passenger jets and 30 freighters, according to the company. A-330s made up 7 per cent of the passenger total, as of March, according to company data.

“A group of Qatar Airways A-330 pilots are being offered a voluntary short-term secondment opportunity with RwandAir,” the Qatar Airways spokesperson said, adding the scheme offered valuable flying opportunities for pilots while supporting the operational requirements of both airlines, without saying how long the secondment would last.

The war has impacted airlines globally but particularly the Middle East aviation hubs of Dubai and Doha following the Feb 28 US-Israeli strikes on Iran, although flight volumes have recovered to near pre-war levels.

By grounding the less fuel-efficient and older A-330 fleet, Qatar is containing jet fuel costs. Parking the planes is substantially cheaper than flying them at current high oil prices, analysts said.

The remaining aircraft Qatar Airways leased from Oman Air are parked either in Teruel, Spain, or in Doha, according to flight tracking data, and have remained parked in recent months, as the Iran war has dragged on. Two of the A-330s parked in Doha, which Qatar is leasing from aircraft lessor Jetran, will be returned to the lessor in October.

Analysts said older planes like the out-of-production A-330 operated by Qatar Airways would have been phased out by now, but have remained in service longer than expected due to manufacturing delays and high post-Covid travel demand.

Now, surging oil prices have made it less attractive to operate older jets, with global A330-200 and A330-300 flight operations down by about 12 per cent from September 2025, according to seven-day averages calculated by Cirium Ascend, which tracks global fleet movements.

Qatar’s operational headache has been compounded by widespread disruption to Gulf carriers since the war began and the loss of some transit passengers to competing hubs.

“Middle East carriers are not flying the aircraft as much because of restrictions on the use of airspace there,” IBA’s head of consulting Dan Taylor said earlier in September.

As of this month, Qatar Airways’ seven-day average available seat kilometres – the ​industry’s standard measure of passenger-carrying capacity – was 10 per cent lower than a year ago, according to Cirium Ascend, compared with a similar decline at Emirates and flat global industry capacity.

Qatar Airways is on average operating 12 per cent fewer flights versus a year ago, and using 4 per cent fewer planes, although it is on track to return to capacity and network growth by 2027, Cirium said.

While short-term demand has weakened, Qatar still expects growth to resume once regional disruption eases and will soon start recruiting pilots for newer aircraft, it said.

The secondment of just over a dozen staff to RwandAir would ensure pilots trained to fly A-330s can continue flying, the spokesperson said. Airlines do sometimes offer secondments to their pilots based on international partnerships with other carriers.

RwandAir, which has a codeshare agreement with Qatar, did not respond to a request for comment. It said in a post on X in August that it had received the first of five expected A-330 jets.

Qatar Airways, which runs one of the world’s busiest hubs and competes mainly with Dubai-based Emirates, continues to take delivery of new jets. It has received two large wide-body jets each from Airbus and Boeing in 2026, company data shows.

The Qatar Airways spokesperson said that between September 2026 and the end of 2027, the carrier was planning six aircraft exits and 19 new plane deliveries.

To meet growth objectives stretching into the 2030s, the airline has a total of 410 planes still on order from Boeing and Airbus, including 160 announced during a visit to the emirate by US President Donald Trump in May 2025. REUTERS