Commercial

UPS Cancels A380 Order

By Tish Drake | March 2, 2007
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Following several production delays, parcel giant UPS cancelled its order for 10 freighter versions of the Airbus A380. The move leaves Airbus with no firm orders for the freighter version of the jumbo aircraft. UPS said the final cancellation decision will be formally presented to Airbus on the first date specified under an agreement reached last week that gives either party the right to terminate the order. UPS was originally slated to receive its first A380 freighters in 2009. But various production delays at Airbus pushed that back until as late as 2012. UPS said it is not confident Airbus, which announced 10,000 layoffs this week, would be able to deliver in 2012. UPS said it intended to complete an internal study of whether it could wait until 2012 for the aircraft, but now understands Airbus is diverting employees from the A380 freighter program to work on the passenger version. "Based on our previous discussions, we had felt that 2012 was a reasonable estimate of when Airbus could supply this plane," said David Abney, UPS’s chief operating officer and president of UPS Airline. "We no longer are confident that Airbus can adhere to that schedule. UPS has built one of the largest airlines in the world in order to ensure reliable service to our customers, and we’re confident we have the resources to continue doing so in the future." For related news

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