The last customer for the freight version of the Airbus 380, the United Parcel Service, has said it planned to cancel an order for 10 Airbus 380 freighters. It had considered waiting until 2012 for the aircraft, but when it learned that Airbus is diverting employees from the freighter version to work on the passenger version…they were no longer confident that Airbus could adhere to that schedule.
This comes at a bad time, as Airbus is in the midst of conflict with unionized labor over layoffs and reorganization.