Representational image only.
| Photo Credit: AP

A senior Qatar Airways executive told an Australian Senate inquiry on September 27 there would be no repeat of an incident at Doha’s international airport in 2020 in which female passengers were subjected to invasive gynaecological examinations.

Australian Transport Minister Catherine King said three weeks ago that the examinations of 13 Australian women who had boarded a Qatar Airways plane to Sydney were a factor in her decision in July to refuse the Qatar government-owned airline additional flights to Australia.

Qatar Airways Senior vice-president for Global Sales Matt Raos described the incident, which occurred when authorities were looking for the mother of a newborn baby found abandoned in a Hamad International Airport trash can, as “a one-off incident, a very extreme incident.”

“We’ve had nothing like it previously in our history and we’re completely committed to ensuring nothing like this ever happens again,” Raos told the committee.

Raos was responding to government Sen. Tony Sheldon, who had asked for a guarantee on behalf of female passengers who feared they would be subjected to such treatment. The Doha-based executive declined to detail the incident because five women are suing the airline in Australian Federal Court.

“We are participating in that process. We think it’s a very important process and we need to honour it and respect it. It does preclude us from going further into this topic today,” Raos said. “The outcome of that Federal Court case is something that we will honour and abide,” Raos added.

“The five Australian women, whose names are suppressed by a court gag order, say they were taken off the flight to Sydney at Doha at gunpoint by guards and were searched without consent. Qatar Airways provided no response to their complaints and offered no apology,” the women said.

They wrote to Catherine King through their lawyer in June urging that Qatar Airways not be allowed to double its number of Australian services from the current 28 flights per week. “It is our strong belief that Qatar Airways is not fit to carry passengers around the globe let alone to major Australian airports,” they wrote.

“When you are considering Qatar Airways’ bid for extra landing rights, we beg you to consider its insensitive and irresponsible treatment of us and its failure to ensure the safety and dignity of its passengers,” they said.

Raos said Qatar was “surprised and shocked” that Australia had rejected without explanation its application for additional services to Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth which was made on August 22, 2022.

Qatar Senior vice-president Fathi Atti told the inquiry that the airline learned of the decision through the news media on July 10 and did not receive official notification from the Australian government until 10 days later.

The airline said it calculated that the additional services would have provided Australia with 3 billion Australian dollars ($1.9 billion) in economic benefits over five years. Earlier this month, Catherine King said her decision was made in the “context” of women’s complaints about their treatment.

“There is no one factor that I would point to that swayed my decision one way or the other,” Catherine King told reporters. The committee is examining a number of Australia’s bilateral air service agreements.