As the ongoing Iran war keeps on hammering the airlines on the fuel price front, Qatar Airways has reportedly retired its last Airbus A330 passenger jets, apart from sending some of its pilots to RwandAir, Rwanda’s flag carrier.
The Gulf nation’s flag carrier leased four Airbus wide-body A330 jets from Oman Air in 2025 and planned to keep flying them through 2026, but the aircraft never entered service, as per the sources mentioned by Reuters.
The ongoing price spike on the jet fuel front and the heavy operational disruption due to the volatile geopolitics have resulted in the carrier fully retiring its A330 fleet.
One of the A330s was acquired earlier, in 2026, by RwandAir. Qatar Airways has longstanding ties to RwandAir, and leveraging this relationship, the airline has sent a group of pilots to the African carrier, some of whom had not flown commercially since the start of the Iran war.
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 Qatar Airways expects to receive 138 new aircraft,” the spokesperson added further.
The carrier operates a mixed Airbus and Boeing fleet of 239 passenger jets and 30 freighters. A330s made up 7% of the passenger total, as of March 2026.
“A group of Qatar Airways A330 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.
The conflict has severely impacted the Middle East aviation hubs of Dubai and Doha, although flight volumes have recovered to near pre-war levels.
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 recently, with the war showing no signs of ending.
Two of the A330s parked in Doha, which Qatar is leasing from aircraft lessor Jetran, will be returned to the lessor in October this year.
While analysts said older planes like the out-of-production A330 operated by Qatar Airways should have been phased out by now, they have remained in service due to new aircraft manufacturing delays and high post-COVID travel demand.
However, the surging oil prices have made it less attractive for Qatar Airways to operate these older jets, with global A330-200 and A330-300 flight operations down by about 12% from September 2025, according to seven-day averages calculated by Cirium Ascend, which tracks global fleet movements.
As of September, the carrier’s seven-day average available seat kilometres (ASK) – the aviation industry’s standard measure of passenger-carrying capacity – remained 10% lower than a year ago, Cirium Ascend stated, compared with a 10% decline at Emirates and flat global industry capacity.
“Qatar Airways is on average operating 12% fewer flights versus a year ago and using 4% fewer planes, although it is on track to return to capacity and network growth by 2027,” the agency noted further.