Production freighter orders, deliveries & backlog -- September 2012

Both Airbus and Boeing have now published their September orders and deliveries. Regarding freighters, it was a month of deliveries only, as neither manufacturer booked any orders, and in fact only Boeing delivered any freighters in September.

As shown in the chart at right, Boeing delivered three 747-8Fs, three 777Fs, and one 767-300F in September, all to different customers. Airbus, which currently offers the A330-200F as a production freighter, took no orders and made no deliveries.

In fact, the order spree of the past few years has tailed off in 2012. Boeing's only freighter order this year came from FedEx, which upped its existing 27-unit 767-300F order by another 15 units, bringing the total to forty-two. For its part, Airbus booked A330-200F orders from Etihad (two units), and Colombia-based Synergy Group (three units, presumably for all-cargo subsidiary Tampa Cargo). However, Airbus also saw the cancellation of a six-unit order by US-based MatlinPatterson, and the swapping of three A330-200 freighter orders for passenger variants by lessor Intrepid Aviation (leaving intrepid with 12 freighter orders).

Looking at the overall production freighter situation, the chart at right shows the current status of orders, deliveries and backlogs for the four types currently offered by Airbus and Boeing. Despite the recent dearth of orders and the steady flow of deliveries, the backlog for these widebody freighters remains at an impressive 198 units -- a lot of capacity to be absorbed, given the current soft airfreight demand environment.