Ben Mutzabaugh

USA TODAY

Delta Air Lines won’t be flying Boeing’s 787 Dreamliners after all.

In a move that had been widely expected, Delta announced on Tuesday it had reached an agreement with Boeing to cancel an order for 18 Dreamliners. Delta inherited the order via its 2008 merger with Northwest.

“Delta is one of the world’s largest operators of Boeing aircraft and our valued partnership with Boeing will remain strong as we safely and comfortably serve our customers across the world every day,” Greg May, Delta’s SVP – Supply Chain Management and Fleet, said in a statement. “This business decision is consistent with Delta’s fleet strategy to prudently address our widebody aircraft needs.”

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Northwest had been expected to be the first U.S. airline to fly Boeing’s new-age Dreamliner. The first of its 18 787s -- initially ordered in 2005 -- were due to arrive in 2008, but production delays at Boeing pushed back the 787's debut by several years. In the interim, Delta acquired Northwest and deferred Northwest’s order for the Dreamliner before finally moving to cancel it this week.

The termination of the order was not a surprise.

"Everyone has been waiting for this," Addison Schonland, an aerospace analyst at the AirInsight consulting firm, said to the Puget Sound Business Journal. "Why it took so long, I don't know. Delta seems to have moved to Airbus wide body planes.”

Delta and Boeing did not reveal the details of their agreement to end the 787 order, though Delta made a point in its statement to say it would “continue to take delivery of new 737-900ER aircraft through 2019 as two orders totaling 120 of the narrowbody jet are fulfilled.” It’s unclear if that 737-900ER order also had come up for review by Delta’s management.

The Business Journal adds interesting background in its report, writing “Delta declined to answer when asked if Boeing pressed the airline to cancel its order so the jets could be freed up for another buyer with more immediate needs, such as Iran Air.”

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More broadly, Delta’s official termination of its 787 order comes as a number of global airlines have slowed delivery schedules of new widebody jets amid a glut of capacity in some long-haul international markets that such jets are designed to serve.

As an example, Reuters writes “airlines like Norwegian Air Shuttle from outside the United States are adding flights that Delta says have exceeded passenger demand and hurt unit revenue.”

Delta also has slowed the delivery schedule for its new Airbus A350 jets, the Airbus model that’s a direct competitor to Boeing’s Dreamliner. Bloomberg News notes “Delta still has widebody orders for 25 A350s and 25 smaller A330neo planes on its books.”

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