UPS Says It Wasn't Notified

It wasn't very surprising news... except to the customer. On Thursday, Airbus announced it was ceasing work indefinitely on a planned freighter version of its A380 airliner.

"We have rescheduled the A380 freighter program," said Airbus spokeswoman Maggie Bergsma during a news conference, without providing further details.

As Aero-News reported last week, UPS and Airbus issued a joint statement saying both parties agreed to delay deliveries of the 10 freighters UPS had on order. The agreement also gave both sides the option of postponing or canceling the orders -- the only ones for the A380F, after previous orders from FedEx and leasing company ILFC were cancelled and converted, respectively.

In an interview with Bloomberg, UPS spokesman Mark Giuffre said Airbus never notified his company of its intent to halt work on the massive freighter -- despite pronouncements made by Airbus CEO Louis Gallois that UPS had agreed to postpone its order for a decade.

"We've not made any decision," Giuffre said. "Airbus has had problems in terms of delivering the aircraft in the A380 program. It has not been UPS asking for delays in the program."

The decision to postpone work on the freighter will allow Airbus to reallocate those slots for passenger aircraft -- which should allow the planemaker to make some progress in filling orders that have been delayed 22 months past originally scheduled delivery dates.

FMI: www.airbus.com