UPS has announced it is cancelling its $2.8 billion order for 10 of the new Airbus A380 “megafreighters”, leaving the European manufacturer without a customer for the cargo plane.
The US express firm said late on Friday that it would pull out of the order following newsthat Airbus had stopped work on the freighter.
Airbus halted work on UPS’ order to deploy all its engineering resources to the passengerversion of the plane, the first of which has to be delivered to Singapore Airlines in October thisyear. Airbus has 160 orders for the passenger jet.
The decision by UPS comes just one week after the company signed a renegotiated agreementwith Airbus, permitting a later delivery date for the freighter. The new delivery schedue put backdelivery of the first A380 to UPS from 2010 to 2012. UPS originally expected its first freighter in2009.
“Based on our previous discussions, we had felt that 2012 was a reasonable estimate of whenAirbus could supply this plane,” said David Abney, UPS’s chief operating officer and president ofUPS Airlines. “We no longer are confident that Airbus can adhere to that schedule.”
UPS was the last remaining customer for the cargo plane, following FedEx’s decision to dropits $2.3 billion order, also for 10 of the aircraft. FedEx decided instead to buy 15 Boeing 777freighters for its future fleet growth. In February, UPS said it had ordered 27 new Boeing 767-300Extended Range freighters – but said then that they would not replace the A380s.
UPS said on Friday that its final cancellation decision for the A380s would be formallypresented to Airbus on the first date specified under the agreement reached a week ago – thought tobe in the second half of this year.
“UPS had intended to complete an internal study of whether it could wait until 2012 for theaircraft, but now understands Airbus is diverting employees from the A380 freighter program to workon the passenger version of the plane,” the Atlanta-based carrier said in a statement.
Airbus commented that the order would remain on its books until UPS communicated its finaldecision.
Delays in producing the A380 are mainly due to electrical wiring problems. Last week, Airbusannounced it would axe 10,000 of 55,000 jobs in France, Germany, the UK and Spain, due to thedelays and the outsourcing of more its manufacturing.
