Qatar Airways has announced that it is filing a US$600 million legal claim for damages relating to the delayed construction of the New Doha International Airport (NDIA).
The national carrier is suing the German-Emirati construction company, Lindner Depa Interiors (LDI), for delays which have set back the airport’s opening date by almost a year. LDI was responsible for the construction of 19 airport lounges at NDIA, but failed to complete the project on time. The airport was due to have opened in December 2012, but will now not commence operations until the second half 2013.
In a statement, Qatar Airways said LDI had “badly defaulted”, and that the delayed opening had “seriously affected” the airline’s expansion plans and caused it “huge revenue losses”.
“We are extremely disappointed by the poor performance of LDI which has failed to carry out the contract in a timely manner which in turn has forced a delay of the opening of the New Doha International Airport by nearly a year,” said Qatar Airways’ CEO, Akbar Al Baker.
“We have been badly affected as an airline with the delay impacting Qatar Airways’ expansion plans that include new aircraft deliveries and opening up new routes at the rate we want to and more importantly causing a lot of inconvenience to our passengers in addition to the revenue losses to the airline and its subsidiaries.
“The current airport we are operating from is already full to capacity with virtually no room to grow. We relied on moving to our new home, the New Doha International Airport… but this has not happened,” he added.
Qatar Airways will be the operator of the new US$15.5 billion airport, which is due to be one of the biggest in the world, covering up to 3,500 hectares. In its first phase, NDIA is will be able to handle more than 28 million passengers a year – significantly more than the 20m capacity of the old Doha International Airport. Further phases are expected to see capacity double to more than 50m passengers per year by 2018.
