Qatar Airways’ New CEO Prioritizes Better Airbus Relations

Hamad Al-Khater during a visit to Airbus SE’s headquarters in Toulouse, France.Source: Qatar Airways

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By Fiona MacDonald

February 18, 2026 at 5:00 AM UTC

Updated on

February 18, 2026 at 4:02 PM UTC

About a month into his tenure as Qatar Airways Group’s chief executive, Hamad Al-Khater made certain his first overseas trip took him to the French headquarters of planemaker Airbus SE.

The companies have had a notoriously contentious relationship in recent years, but Al-Khater described his January meeting with planemaker CEO Guillaume Faury in Toulouse as “brilliant” and “fantastic.” Faury then accompanied German Chancellor Friedrich Merz to Qatar a couple of weeks ago, and the two corporate heads had a follow-up lunch there.