by Donald Wood
Last updated: 11:00 AM ET, Thu December 29, 2016
On Tuesday, Delta Air Lines and airplane manufacturer Boeing agreed to cancel an order for 18 Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft which the airline had taken on during its merger with Northwest Airlines.
Delta purchased Northwest in 2008 for $2.6 billion in shares.
According to Reuters.com, the canceled order was valued at more than $4 billion at current list prices, but Delta officials said they would continue taking deliveries of Boeing 737-900ER aircraft through 2019.
"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," Delta senior vice president Greg May said in a statement on the airline's official website. "This business decision is consistent with Delta's fleet strategy to prudently address our widebody aircraft needs."
In addition to its current orders through Boeing, Delta has 25 Airbus A350s scheduled for delivery through 2020, but has pushed back the delivery dates by a year or two in order to "make the schedule more consistent with (the) expected pace of international market improvement."
The cancellation of the Boeing order and the changes to the Airbus delivery schedule come as airlines in the United States attempt to slow flight capacity growth and even "shrink existing service in response to falling airfares," according to Reuters.
Officials from Delta have said that airlines like Norwegian Air Shuttle are adding more flights which have started to exceed passenger demand and hurt unit revenue.
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