Qatar Airways dodges bullet, Australian women offered new target

BTN News
Thursday, 11 April 2024

Doha-based Qatar Airways has been cleared in an Australian lawsuit over an incident at Doha airport in which women were forcibly removed from 10 planes at Doha Airport in 2020 and forced to take 'invasive' gynaecological examinations.


The federal court dismissed the case against the airline, but justice John Halley said the Australian women could instead re-file their claims for damages against Matar, the Qatar Air-owned firm that runs Doha Airport for the Qatar Civil Aviation Authority (QCAA).

Five women had taken legal action against the airline, the QCAA and Matar and wanted damages for alleged 'unlawful physical contact', false imprisonment and mental health impacts.

They were among more than a dozen passengers who were affected by a search for the mother of a newborn baby found abandoned at the airport.

The women were taken to ambulances on the tarmac and some were forced to submit to invasive examinations for evidence they had recently given birth. 

Qatar Airways and Matar had argued the “men in dark uniforms” responsible for detaining the women were Qatari police under the command of Qatar’s ministry of interior (MoI) and not employees or agents of the airline or airport. 

In his judgment, Halley said: “The proposition that Qatar Airways was able to exert any relevant control over the officers of the MoI conducting the police operation ... can fairly be characterised as ‘fanciful, trifling, implausible, improbable, tenuous or one that is contradicted by all the available documents or other materials’.” 

Halley ordered the women, who were represented by Marque Lawyers, to pay the costs of Qatar Airways and the QCAA, but Halley found Matar 'had not proven its employees or contracted security personnel did not give any specific directions to the women' during the incident.

Qatar Airways dodges bullet, Australian women offered new target

BTN News
Thursday, 11 April 2024

Doha-based Qatar Airways has been cleared in an Australian lawsuit over an incident at Doha airport in which women were forcibly removed from 10 planes at Doha Airport in 2020 and forced to take 'invasive' gynaecological examinations.


The federal court dismissed the case against the airline, but justice John Halley said the Australian women could instead re-file their claims for damages against Matar, the Qatar Air-owned firm that runs Doha Airport for the Qatar Civil Aviation Authority (QCAA).

Five women had taken legal action against the airline, the QCAA and Matar and wanted damages for alleged 'unlawful physical contact', false imprisonment and mental health impacts.

They were among more than a dozen passengers who were affected by a search for the mother of a newborn baby found abandoned at the airport.

The women were taken to ambulances on the tarmac and some were forced to submit to invasive examinations for evidence they had recently given birth. 

Qatar Airways and Matar had argued the “men in dark uniforms” responsible for detaining the women were Qatari police under the command of Qatar’s ministry of interior (MoI) and not employees or agents of the airline or airport. 

In his judgment, Halley said: “The proposition that Qatar Airways was able to exert any relevant control over the officers of the MoI conducting the police operation ... can fairly be characterised as ‘fanciful, trifling, implausible, improbable, tenuous or one that is contradicted by all the available documents or other materials’.” 

Halley ordered the women, who were represented by Marque Lawyers, to pay the costs of Qatar Airways and the QCAA, but Halley found Matar 'had not proven its employees or contracted security personnel did not give any specific directions to the women' during the incident.