Airbus closes on A380 order target

PAUL LEWIS / WASHINGTON DC

FedEx -600 freighter confirmation brings total to 97 as manufacturer awaits second wave of commitments

FedEx Express is expected to announce by the end of this month that it has finalised its contract with Airbus for 10 A380-800 Freighters powered by the General Electric/Pratt & Whitney joint venture Alliance GP7000.

The order takes the manufacturer close to its stated end-of-year goal of 100 orders. The Fedex deal is the third for the freighter, which is understood to include an undisclosed number of options.

According to industry sources, FedEx has already inked the deal for both the aircraft and GP7000 engines, designated the GP7200 for the A380 application. Neither the airframe or engine manufacturer were able to confirm the deal, with FedEx declining to comment.

Finalisation of the deal comes almost a year after FedEx announced plans to order 10 aircraft with deliveries starting in 2008 at the rate of three per year with the final aircraft arriving in 2011. The FedEx GP7200 deal represents Alliance's second customer after a launch order from Air France.

The higher gross weight A380-800F will be powered by the GP7277, a 76,500lb (340kN) increased thrust version of the baseline engine (Flight International, 25 September-1 October). Of the nine customers to have so far announced orders or memoranda of understanding (MoU) to buy the A380, four - Emirates, International Lease Finance, Lufthansa and Qatar - have still to choose between the GP7200 and Rolls-Royce Trent 900 (see table).

Lufthansa's announcement earlier this month that it intends to order 15 A380s has raised the total number of orders and MoUs to 97 and around 69 options.

Airbus chief executive Noel Forgeard told French newspaper Les Echoes last week: "We should attain 100 around the turn of the year as I announced a year ago. That corresponds to the end of the launch orders with special conditions."

Airbus anticipates that there will be a period of inactivity before a second wave of carriers start to commit to the A380 in around a year's time, which it expects to include airlines from the USA and Japan and possibly British Airways. An unidentified commitment for four A380s previously listed by Airbus has now disappeared from the customer list.

Source: Flight International