ANDEW DOYLE / SINGAPORE & SIMON WARBURTON / PARIS
Troubled flag carrier cancels nine A340-600s, while Singapore Airlines puts A340-500s order on hold until late 2003
The Airbus A340-500/600 programme has suffered two major blows after the cancellation of Swissair's order for nine -600s and Singapore Airlines (SIA) delayed its -500s by nine months.
Swissair was to begin receiving the first of nine A340-600s in the second half of next year via its sister leasing company Flightlease. Two more A340-600s were due to be delivered from International Lease Finance. The order has been in doubt since the airline's financial collapse earlier this month, and Swissair now confirms that "the purchase agreement has been cancelled by Airbus in view of Swissair's situation. The orders were for Flightlease, whose future is still under evaluation while they are in debt moratorium."
According to the manufacturer, however, the order still stands: "There is no formal cancellation, but we are talking to Crossair and Swissair with a view to exploring different scenarios," says Airbus.
Meanwhile, the European manufacturer has agreed to allow SIA to delay the five A340-500s it has on order until October 2003. The move means SIA will postpone the inauguration of the first non-stop flights between South-East Asia and the USA, originally planned for early 2003, in the face of falling transpacific traffic and a worsening financial outlook.
Airbus says the fact that SIA still remains committed to theA340-500 despite the current downturn is "encouraging" and that it sends a "very positive signal" that the aircraft has a key role to play in exploiting Singapore's open skies agreement with the USA by enabling non-stop flights.
However, SIA's success in securing the deferral will probably encourage other cash-strapped customers such as Virgin Atlantic to step up their efforts to secure delays to their own deliveries. It emerged earlier this month that Virgin, which is due to be the first customer to take delivery of the A340-600 next June, is attempting to delay deliveries (Flight International, 9-15 October). This leaves the Rolls-Royce Trent 500-powered A340-500/600 facing an uncertain near-term future.
Airbus is working to eliminate excess weight from the wing of the A340-500/600, coupled with efforts by R-R to further improve the efficiency of the Trent 500. SIA's delay is not thought to be related to the weight problem, however, as the airline had already been due to receive the first "optimum" aircraft, the twenty-fourth A340-500/600 off the production line.
SIA is also discussing with Boeing the deferral of some of the Boeing 777s it has on order by up to a year, say industry sources.
The airline has 28 777-200ERs on firm order along with five of the larger 777-300 model, all powered by the R-R Trent 800.
Source: Flight International
