8 Comments on “Indian cargo airline says A330Fs delayed because of–USAF KC-X competition”

1. Well, I guess Flyington Freighters should have ordered the B-777F. But, now they have to wait for EADS to open a KC-X production line in MOB, which will be years from now, if they get the contract.

   I see this as a weak attempt, encouraged by EADS, to prove to the US an A-330MRTT and A-330F production line in MOB already has “orders”. EADS has never said they would sent the RSAF and UAE A-330MRTT production to MOB, so why is this small company complaining about this in the US press. They should be dragging EADS into court in India. Didn’t they read the IAF canceled their A-330MRTTs about a year ago?

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   • Airbus delivered the first A330-200F to Etihad Crystal Cargo this month, and they have built at least two for testing. Since they don’t have an assembly line in Mobile, Alabama, it follows that these were either built by pixies, or in Toulouse. Etihad did not have to wait for this new assembly line. Logic would suggest that Flyington doesn’t have to either, and that there issues are of a separate nature, but that they like the idea of getting some money in from Airbus.

     http://www.airbus.com/en/presscentre/pressreleases/press-release/?tx_ttnews%5Bswords%5D=etihad&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=4359&tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=1765&cHash=2c46fe5993

     Furthermore, at the time of the order, Flyington was expecting the planes to join in the second half of 2009. Not mid-2008.

     Quote: “Flyington Freighters Ltd is the first cargo airline to order the A330-200F, and the first aircraft will join the fleet in the second half of 2009. ”

     http://www.airbus.com/en/presscentre/pressreleases/press-release/?tx_ttnews%5Bswords%5D=a330-200f&tx_ttnews%5Bpointer%5D=3&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=513&tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=1765&cHash=6ef51db5cf

     Still a delay, compared to what they were told then, but it appears Defense News did not do a lot of research.

     So it’ll be interesting if somebody actually could dig into this.

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   • Oh Dear, some people immediately jump on the bandwagon….
     “I see this as a weak attempt, encouraged by EADS, to prove to the US an A-330MRTT and A-330F production line in MOB already has “orders”.”
     And I see no connection at all. Assembly of the Freighters in MOB was an extra perk for the US to choose the A332 as the tanker but planning wise the production assumption was always to build them in TLS.

     “They should be dragging EADS into court in India.”
     Good advice. Perhaps they are following Air India.
     http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-11/air-india-plans-to-seek-840-million-late-fee-for-boeing-dreamliner-delay.html

     “Didn’t they read the IAF canceled their A-330MRTTs about a year ago?”
     And what is the connection?

     As Andreas suggested a simple search of Flyington Freighters revealed the following:
     “Flyington Freighters, seems no nearer a reality now than two years ago. Its management seem to have all but disappeared and there is no prospect of a commencement of operations as originally stated. Pressed on the issue of the current status of Flyington’s order Airbus would only say that: “We have agreed with them to reschedule the deliveries.”
     http://www.aircargonews.net/News/A330F-takes-off-into-a-treacherous-freighter-market.aspx
     Now they want to sue Airbus? Interesting tactics…

     “I guess Flyington Freighters should have ordered the B-777F.”
     Perhaps…

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2. Airbus gave the impression at the time of the original delay that customers were OK with pushing back the freighter model because the passenger variant was more seen as more urgent. And since the majority of customers for the A330F are leasing companies with orders for the passenger variety too, this is probably correct. It leaves Flyington Freighters (who they?) in the lurch though.

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3. It’s not even been a year since roll-out of the first A330F! A bit weird to blame recent issues with the tanker competition for Airbus not delivering an aircraft a year and a half before it actually flew…

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4. As with many things, there is much more to this story than meets the eye. During the Farnborough Air Show, we learned quite a bit about the back story of this. There is an underlying dispute between Airbus and Flyington, with Airbus threatening to cancel the Flyington order and keeping the progress payments made to date. Flyington threatened to sue, tying the issue to the tanker.

   There is much more intrigue involved in the tanker tie-in alleged by Flyington, but what we learned about this was from another reporter (not Defense News) and we have to honor his efforts on this story, so we can’t go into it.

   The Flyington order has been deferred to about 2014, another A330F customer tells us, who was offered the Flyington positions. This deferral was at Flyington’s request.

   Six months ago, at the depth of the world cargo recession, we were told Flyington wanted to either sell its positions or cancel them. We emailed Flyington at the time but got no response.

   The airline is a start-up and as we have seen, the airlines in India are under financial stress at the moment

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   • That makes more sense than the Defense News article. Thanks for the clarification.

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5. Due they even have a cargo certificate?

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