Air Transport

Thai Airways International is in talks with Airbus to delay delivery of its six Airbus A380s on order.

The Star Alliance carrier is due to receive the first, of six A380s on order, in October 2010 but the carrier's chairman of the executive board, Wallop Bhukkanasut, has stated publicly Thai is in negotiations with Airbus and wants to delay first deliveries to 2012, says a Thai spokeswoman in Bangkok.

It wants to do this because "of the global economic situation" and in 2012 "our cash-flow problems should be resolved," she says.

It had earlier been looking to cancel the order altogether or switch to the Airbus A350-1000, confirms the spokeswoman.

But she says Thai then decided against switching the order to A350-1000s because the delivery dates may be too late. Airbus is aiming to have first deliveries of the -1000 in 2015.

Thai's move to delay A380 deliveries to 2012 comes as it embarks on a financial turnaround plan following recent financial losses.

In 2008, Thai had a loss of 21.3 billion baht ($588 million).