Airbus Order Cancelled

Airbus has published another order cancellation, this time for its A350F, marking the second in the last couple of months.

Martinair is the company that has trimmed its forecasted eventual operation with the Airbus A350F. This is a cargo division of KLM and thus part of the overall Air France-KLM Group.

One unit has been removed from the Martinair future freight fleet, with the move reflected in Airbus’ publishing of their July monthly orders and deliveries data.

The Group, having already committed to the program in a bid to revitalise cargo flying into the future, the decision to cancel the order came as no shock.

Air France-KLM confirmed in March that it would be moving ahead with the scaleback of its orderbook for the A350F, following several delays to the upcoming freighter program.

Additionally, the Group conducted a study into its portfolio of future aircraft and decided that there would be a notable change to its flying, including a reduction in the freighter order as part of the end result from those studies.

Air France-KLM’s order tally stood at eight, with the decision made to decrease this to six, as reported by Air Cargo News at the time. The split would be four units, with four heading to Air France Cargo and four to Martinair.

A decision to axe units doesn’t mean the overall focus on freighter flying will diminish, though, with the Group saying it would continue to utilise the belly capacity of passenger aircraft alongside the eventual usage of these dedicated freighters.

While a blow to the backlog ever so slightly for the A350F, this is still a next-generation freighter that is attracting a fair amount of interest from freighter providers looking to elevate their business and renew the fleet.

Another Airbus A350F Cancellation

The confirmation of Martinair’s axing of an A350F order also follows one of the program’s launch customers, Air Lease Corporation, axing their entire fleet of orders for the jet.

The leading global lessor committed to the program at the 2021 edition of the Dubai Airshow with seven freighters purchased alongside a commitment for over 100 passenger aircraft.

However, the lessors’ executives shared more insight into the decision to cancel during a recent earnings call, discussing the movements of the industry forcing shifts to occur.

Air Lease Corporation says it’s now in a position where its focus is on passenger airlines rather than solely on providing new freighter aircraft to customers such as the Airbus A350F.

As a result, in the almost four years since the purchase change has occurred, internal studies show that removing the A350F from the backlog puts them in a better position to serve airlines’ requirements now and into the future in a passenger jet capacity.