Boeing’s First 747-8F delivered to Cargolux

On Wednesday, Boeing Co’s (NYSE:BA) first 747-8 Freighter was delivered and was accepted by Cargolux Airlines international after the two companies resolved contractual issues between them.

Cargolux Airlines which had a contractual issue with the airline manufacturer had abruptly refused the delivery of freight carrier last month. Boeing has finally been able to release their 747 superjumbo, the company’s latest version of the popular aircraft, which is said to be the largest and the most identifiable plane. The superjumbo took off for the Seattle- Tacoma International airport from Boeing’s delivery center located near Seattle to deliver its first scheduled cargo load. From Seattle-Tacoma Airport the Freighter is scheduled to Luxemburg where Cargolux headquarters are based.

Randy Tinseth, Boeing’s vice president for marketing said in a blog post, even though the company had to wait much longer than it has initially expected, it did not make the delivery any less better than expected. Adding to this Tinseth said that Boeing knows well that Cargolux and other customers after them will love the 787 freighter in every way from its flight to its performance.

The delivery of the superjumbo was a serious affair as Cargolux had abruptly refused the airplanes scheduled September 19^th delivery. However a three day send off celebration was announced at the last minute at Boeing. The refusal for the delivery was later blamed on an underperformance of General Electric Co.’s engines.

Cargolux Airlines, which has thirteen 747-8 Freighters on order, still refuses to discuss the whole story of the conflict with Boeing and GE, all they said was that the negotiation team took relevant actions on the issue. A spokesman for GE refused to comment on the dispute.

Frank Reimen, Chief Executive Officer of Cargolux, said in a statement on Wednesday that the Superjumbo 747-8F will act as a source to profitable growth for the company. Boeing is scheduled to deliver its second 747-8 Freighter on Thursday to Cargolux.

Qatar Airways head, Akbar al Baker one among the major shareholders of Cargolux, had said on 30^th September that the Superjumbo 747-8F has reached a hesitant deal and the delivery of the airplane would be accepted around October 12^th. Akbar and Reimen both were the members of the negotiation team.

The 747-8 Freighter program is almost over a year aback its actual schedule of delivery date. Boeing has accepted seventy five orders of the Superjumbo listing at $319.3 million each. Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings, another customer for Boeing had to cancel its orders last month of three 747-8F airplanes due to performance considerations and citing long delays in deliveries.

Post Written By: Ed Liston Ed Liston is a senior contributing editor at TheStockMarketWatch.com. An active market watcher and investor, Ed guides an independent team of experienced analysts and writes for multiple stock trader publications. He is widely quoted in various financial publications on the Internet. When Ed is not writing about stocks, investing in stocks, talking about stocks, or otherwise doing something stock related, he likes to go sailing and fishing in his yacht.