The CEO of Delta Airlines says he has the threat of import tariffs on dozens of new Airbus aircraft figured out. Ed Bastian said he's simply not going to pay them. The airline announced it would pause deliveries from Airbus factories in Canada and Europe to avoid the blanket 10 percent tariff that is now in effect on virtually all goods imported to the U.S. Delta was expecting 20 A350s by the end of this year but the number A220s from a plant near Montreal, Quebec wasn't announced. “We’ll do our very best to see what we have to do to minimise tariffs,” he was quoted as saying on the airline's April earnings call. “But the one thing that you need to know we’re very clear on is that we will not be paying tariffs on any aircraft deliveries we take.” He later said there's simply no point in taking the planes if there is 10-20 percent added to the price, as was initially declared by Trump “It gets very difficult to make that math work,” he said.
What about parts for the aircraft they currently have? Will passengers be happy when flights are unnecessarily cancelled just because warehousing marked up parts became too expensive?
Airbus loves to claim that 50% of the value of their heavily-subsidized aircraft are components from the USA. The CEO of DEIDelta needs to get a grip and embrace Trump reciprocal tariffs, which should ultimately end with lower tariffs for all international trade. Delta’s CEO could however help lower the cost of flying by lobbying against shockingly high airport fees and ridiculous prices charged on everything sold within an airport terminal.
Maybe get an EU operator’s certificate, keep the planes on the EASA register and operate them from the EU, just as easyJet arranged to do post-Brexit? (I don’t know if easyJet ever implemented it after getting the cert.)
US sourced detail parts get European tariffs applied when going into Europe. Same parts then get US tariffs applied when the assembly comes back into the US. As the Italians might say what a messa!
Yes Delta and Airbus! Simply ignore the ravings of the orange menace, and go about your business as usual, because his words create exactly zero laws. A president’s executive order does not create a new global law. Executive orders are directives issued by the president to manage operations WITHIN the federal government. They have the force of law but must be rooted in existing laws or constitutional authority and as they have only the scope of operations within the federal government - Delta’s contract with Airbus has not been magically altered.