Qatar Airways

Performance indicators

2023: Record profit - $1.7 billion

Qatar airline Qatar Airways at the end of the financial year, which ended in March 2024, made a profit of 6.11 billion Qatari rials ($1.7 billion) - this is an absolute record. The growth compared to the indicator of one year ago was 39%. Such data are given in the financial report published on July 2, 2024.

Qatar Airways' annual revenue was recorded at 80.96 billion Qatari rials ($22.2 billion) against 76.27 billion in the 2022/2023 financial year: thus, the growth was 4.7 billion Qatari rials ($1.3 billion), or 6%. Overall, the highest results in 27 years are said to have been achieved.

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Фото: Unsplash

In the 2023/2024 financial year, the company carried more than 40 million passengers, up 26% from a year earlier when 31.75 million people were served. The number of aircraft in Qatar Airways' fleet increased year-on-year from 265 to 284. As a result, passenger revenues jumped 19% and capacity climbed 21% thanks to the airline's highest ever load rate of 83%.

The report notes that the increase in indicators is largely due to the recovery of the global tourism and air travel market after the end of the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic and the lifting of coronavirus restrictions. During the financial year ended, operations were resumed in 14 areas, including Bahrain; Birmingham (Britain); Beijing, Chengdu and Chongqing (China); Davao (Philippines); Tokyo and Osaka (Japan ); Marrakech (Morocco); Nice (France); Penang ( Malaysia); Phnom Penh ( Cambodia), Ras al-Khaimah (UAE) and Yanbu (Saudi Arabia). In the 2023/2024 financial year, the document said, Qatar Airways' network grew to more than 170 destinations.^[1]

History

2025: Qatar Airways makes biggest ever Boeing deal, orders up to 210 jets worth $96 billion

In May 2025, Qatar Airways made the largest one-time deal in Boeing's history, ordering up to 210 wide-body aircraft worth $96 billion, where

• 160 firm orders: 130 × Boeing 787 Dreamliner (the largest order for this model) and 30 × Boeing 777-9
• 50 options on 787 or 777X.

Prior to this order, Qatar Airways had undelivered aircraft under an unclosed deal for approximately 110 copies of various modifications (predominantly the Boeing 777X).

Qatar Airways' active order book has expanded to at least 270 aircraft.

Now Qatar Airways operates 252 passenger aircraft of various types, among which Boeing accounts for 120 aircraft, i.e. we are talking either about doubling the total fleet, or about active modernization and decommissioning of old aircraft.

This is not the largest order in physical execution. At least 220 aircraft were ordered by India in February 2023 (190 × 737 MAX + 20 × 787 9 + 10 × 777 9), and the last major contract was in November 2023 for 90 777X aircraft from Emirates (UAE).

In monetary terms, there is still a record from Qatar due to expensive 787 modifications.

However, the Qatari order is about 2.8% of the total confirmed unfulfilled orders.

Boeing's current order book is nearly 6,300 aircraft, where confirmed orders are 5600-5700. It will take at least 10 years to close undelivered passenger planes if they reach maximum production rates or more realistically about 13 years, provided there are no new orders, Spydell Finance wrote.

Boeing can deliver an average of about 420-440 aircraft per year, both domestically and externally, compared to 569 aircraft for the 2010-2019 annual average.

The Qatari order according to the initial plans will be implemented no earlier than the beginning of the next decade (at best, the first deliveries can be in 2032-2033 with the priority of deliveries).

From 2021 to 2024, Boeing ordered about 2,247 aircraft and another 576 in 2025, on average, the order portfolio expands by about 600 aircraft per year, considering a higher rate in 2025, which is 30-40% higher than production potential.

Qatar, with the expansion of the order stack, can take 5th place in Boeing's largest foreign customers after China (about 540-650 outstanding deliveries), the UAE - 410-430, Ireland - 380-400, India - 370-390 and Indonesia with orders for 260-290 aircraft.

The accounting of orders is extremely problematic, since Boeing does not publish a full list of customers by country, and small orders for 1-7 aircraft often do not fall into statistics.

In the 1990s, Boeing's largest client was Europe, in the 2010s Asia became the leader, and since the 2020s the Middle East has been the result of the activity of the UAE, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

The Qatar order is one of the largest one-time orders in physical execution and the largest in monetary terms, but the implementation time is too long - almost a decade, unless Boeing performs a miracle and doubles at least its production capacity.

The reality is that the segment of passenger aircraft collapsed twice in revenue from 58-60 billion in annual terms in 2018-2019 to 22-34 billion in 2023-2024 for a set of reasons (technological, technical, organizational, labor, production, etc.).

It is unlikely that in the next 5 years (until 2030) it will be possible to reach parity with the average inflow of new orders (an increase in output by 30-40%), so the stack of outstanding orders will remain with a 12-13 year implementation period.

This means that any new orders will be on standby for many years. On the part of the United States in 2025, there are many pretentious order presentations for Boeing, but 500-800 orders per year is the norm that was not previously advertised at all.

2019: Qatar Airways buys Rwanda International Airport

In December 2019, Qatar Airways agreed to acquire a 60% stake in a $1.3 billion international airport under construction in Rwanda, the Rwanda State Development Council said in a statement.

The council said that in five years, upon completion of the first phase of construction in the Bugesera area, about 25 km southeast of Kigali, the airport will be able to accommodate up to 7 million passengers a year. In the second stage, by 2032, it will be possible to double the capacity to 14 million passengers per year.

Notes