After the Hamad airport scandal … Calls for a boycott of “Qatar Airways”

International anger has intensified against Qatar after the incident of women travelers subjected to forced and humiliating checks at Doha airport, amid calls to boycott Qatar Airways.

The crisis between Australia and Qatar has worsened, after Australian female travelers said they were subjected to forced checks over whether they were responsible for throwing an abandoned baby into an airport toilet.

And condemned the Australian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the incident, calling it an “aggression”, and called on the Qatari authorities to provide a response on what happened.

But the reactions did not stop at this point, as Australian politicians from various parties withdrew from a dinner hosted by the Qatari Embassy in Australia, to protest the insults Australian women had received.

At the same time, British authorities confirmed that two British women, who were part of a group of travelers, had been subjected to medical examinations while in Qatar.

The scandal joins a series of nightmares experienced by Qatar Airways, as the chief executive of Qatar Airways recently said that the company’s ten Airbus A380s are unlikely to be in use for several years due to the impact of the coronavirus crisis on demand.

“We don’t plan to use our A380 for at least the next two years,” Akbar Al Baker said at an internet conference.

The state-owned airline has grounded planes due to the impact of the coronavirus crisis on travel demand.

Doha Hamad International Airport

He had said in June that the planes would remain inactive until at least the middle of next year. The airline plans to begin decommissioning the A380 by 2024, when its older aircraft of that model will complete 10 years of service.

Al Baker said the A380s will return to service when the airline reaches the growth rate it achieved in 2019 before the pandemic.

Qatar Airways suffered losses estimated at around $ 1.9 billion in fiscal year 2019-2020 due to the consequences of the pandemic, which are record losses for the company at a time when Al-Baker has indicated that these numbers would not be the end of his business loss train, with expectations to continue in the near future.