So nice....
It's so nice to see so many of you going massively technical while missing the simple point.
POLITICS MY FRIENDS. POLITICS. The EU is waging a war against the middle Eastern carriers especially EK. All the major carriers in the EU are feeling the heat of the world's best airline and are suddenly doing something about it. 2 months ago a judge in Italy reversed a fifth freedom right of mxp-jfk off EK. Germany is ROCK solid in not giving them more slots in Germany. France is making it awfully difficult for EK to get their desired extra slots in cdg. You guys remember the Canadian slots issue that ended up with a huge rift between the UAE and Canada? Well same thing here.
You guys can play the numbers for days but the 350 is a FANTASTIC(and I'm a Boeing lover)piece of machine, cancelling 70 airplanes is no joke, it's a serious warning sign to the EU that if they don't open up, there can't be any serious expansion for EK and that they'll dent Airbus' pride. There is absolutely no tech sense in why a carrier that has the best airline planners in years would suddenly just drop ALL their orders for such a fantastic machine. POLITICS.