Wow! United Airlines Removes Airbus A350 From Its Fleet Plan

The long story of United Airlines' order for the Airbus A350 just took its sharpest turn yet. According to its latest SEC-10K filing, the Chicago-based airline has officially removed the Airbus widebody from its quote-unquote expected aircraft deliveries. This comes after years of filings that have consistently maintained that the carrier still expected to take the 45 A350s at a much later date. The trigger for this sudden change? Well, the filing also contains a newly disclosed dispute with Rolls-Royce involving a widebody engine purchase and maintenance agreement, undoubtedly referring to the Trent XWB engines that would equip any future A350s. Let's take a look at this latest drama for today's video. The dispute centers around a $175 million commitment payment and a demand for repayment after what United calls a breach, the kind of dispute that can easily ripple into fleet plans when an aircraft has a single engine supplier. United placed its original order for the Airbus A350 back in 2009, ordering 25 of the aircraft's first and smaller variant, the A350-900. Then, in 2013, the carrier increased this order to 35 aircraft and converted them all to the larger A350-1000. However, just four years later, United Airlines once again reverted to the A350-900, increasing the total number on order to 45, and that is how it has remained ever since. For nearly a decade, United's A350 order has lived in a strange in-between state, real enough to be contractually on the books, yet distant enough to be repeatedly reshaped, deferred, and treated as a decision for later. As recently as September, United CEO Scott Kirby was stating that the airline expects a 2030 timeframe to make its decision about the A350, saying that "...by the end of the decade we will be well into retiring the 767. It is a natural time to at least think about whether to make the Airbus A350 order firm in the 2030 timeframe." Now everything has changed, and while it's just a single data point on a table buried in a regulatory finding, it marks a massive shift by United. In its 2024 10-K filing, United listed 45 A350s as contractual aircraft deliveries and crucially still includes them in expected aircraft deliveries, shown in the far-out bucket after 2025. A year later, it was the same pattern except pushed out to after 2026. However, this year's filing is different. The contract line stays, 45 A350s are shown as contractual deliveries after 2027, but expected aircraft deliveries for the A350 goes to zero-slash-blank across every bucket. That expected deliveries shift is the headline. United is telling regulators and investors that it does not expect to ever take delivery of the A350. The other major ingredient is the Rolls-Royce dispute disclosed in the 2025 10-K, a section that reads like a legal fight with real commercial stakes. United says it entered into agreements with Rolls-Royce in 2010 for widebody engine purchases and maintenance services, and that it paid the engine maker a $175 million commitment payment in 2017. United then states that in December 2025, following what it described as a breach by Rolls-Royce, it demanded repayment representing the commitment payment plus contractual escalation. Rolls-Royce did not pay and subsequently terminated the agreements while asserting that United breached them. United says that each side contends the other owes damages, and it is also, quote, considering further implications with respect to other parties. United and Airbus have repeatedly amended their A350 deal over the years, and the contract exhibits are heavily redacted for confidentiality. Put bluntly, a lot is unknown. The amendments are redacted, the delivery schedule details are not publicly visible in full, and nothing in the filing says cancelled. However, investor-facing documents increasingly support a simpler interpretation. United is no longer planning around taking the A350, even if the contractual framework hasn't been formally zeroed out. So, what do you think of this news? What do you think are the chances that the situation can be resolved so that United can take A350s? Let us know by leaving a comment.