Shanghai Airlines talks to Boeing about canceling some 787 deliveries

Shanghai Airlines is talking tough with Boeing about possibly canceling delivery of some of the nine 787 Dreamliners it ordered four years ago.

At a shareholders meeting today, Shanghai Airlines Chairman Zhou Chi said the company wants to cancel the first airplane of the nine because the aircraft does not "fully meet the quality that Boeing touted earlier," Bloomberg News reported.

Six Chinese airlines — Shanghai Airlines, Air China, China Eastern, China Southern, Hainan Airlines and Xiamen Airlines — ordered 60 Dreamliners in 2005 and all were then given early delivery slots in late summer 2008. But those deliveries were progressively pushed back due to repeated delays caused mostly by Boeing supply chain problems. The Dreamliner is now almost two years behind schedule.

Zhou said that if Shanghai Airlines doesn't cancel the orders, the carrier will postpone delivery to the end of 2010 at the earliest, Bloomberg reported.

Due to a slump in air travel and a heavy debt burden, the airline will also cut plans to order new aircraft and cut the salaries of top management by 20 percent this year, Zhou said.

Dominic Gates: 206-464-2963 or dgates@seattletimes.com