Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings, Inc. (New York) has announced it has exercised its termination rights for three early build Boeing 747-800F freighter aircraft for subsidiary Atlas Air (New York). The three aircraft were part of an order of 12 747-8Fs announced in September 2006.

Atlas Air now expects to receive three 747-8Fs in 2011, four in 2012, and two in 2013. The first five of these aircraft have been placed under long-term ACMI (aircraft, crew, maintenance and insurance) contracts, as previously announced.

Atlas Air notified Boeing that it has exercised its contractual termination rights with respect to three early production 747-800F freighters after lengthy delays and performance considerations. These three early production freighters were previously scheduled to be Atlas Air’s first deliveries in 2011. Subsequently, Boeing rescheduled these aircraft to early 2012 and three more recently built, better-performing 747-800F freighters were moved to the 2011 delivery positions.

Atlas Air expects to receive its first 747-800F from Boeing in October, followed by two in November and two in the first half of 2012. The first three aircraft will enter ACMI service with British Airways and the second two with Panalpina.

By year-end 2013, Atlas Air’s cargo operations are expected to include nine 747-800Fs and 24 747-400F freighters. It also expects to have two passenger 747-400s and three passenger 767-300s providing charter service to the U.S. military and other customers.

In addition, Atlas Air expects to operate at least 11 customer-owned aircraft in its CMI (crew, maintenance and insurance) operations. These operations include four 747 Large Cargo Freighters for Boeing, five 767 freighters for DHL Express, and two additional 747-400 passenger aircraft for SonAir.

As previously disclosed, Atlas Air’s five remaining older-generation 747-200F cargo aircraft are expected to be retired by mid-2012, with more-efficient 747-400F aircraft providing continuing service. The Company also expects to return two 747-400BCFs to their lessors at the end of their lease terms in early 2014 and early 2015, respectively. These two aircraft were leased as bridge capacity due to the delay in the delivery of the first 747-8ooFs.

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