With President Trump’s current trade war, we’re of course seeing massive tariffs on all kinds of imports. This also applies to many aircraft, which creates major uncertainty for airlines. On the surface, that’s especially bad for Delta, which has a huge order book with Airbus.
We’ve heard Delta CEO Ed Bastian say that the airline won’t be paying any tariffs on Airbus jets. However, that’s not to say the airline won’t take delivery of any, including some manufactured abraod. 😉
In this post:
Basics of United States tariffs on Airbus jets
As matters currently stand, new Airbus jets imported to the United States are subject to a 10% tariff. Now, it’s worth emphasizing that some Airbus jets are actually manufactured in the US (including some A220 and A320-family aircraft), so this wouldn’t apply to those planes. Presumably the import of some parts would be subject to tariffs, but not the aircraft purchase as such.
This isn’t the first time that Delta has had this tariff issue on new Airbus jets. Back in October 2019, Trump (during his first term) imposed tariffs on European goods, including new Airbus jets. How did the Trump administration define new jets?
- New Airbus jets are ones that have “no time in service or hours in flight other than for production testing,” or for delivery to the US
- In other words, if a new plane operates a flight to a destination outside the EU other than the US, it would no longer be considered a new jet, and therefore potentially wouldn’t be subject to those tariffs
So, Delta got creative back in 2019, and now it’s getting creative again.
How Delta is outsmarting US Airbus tariffs
As reported by @xJonNYC, Delta plans to take delivery of a brand new Airbus A350-900 in the coming days, with the registration code N528DN. The plane is manufactured in Toulouse, France (TLS), and Delta doesn’t intend to pay tariffs on this plane. How? Well, the plane is first expected to fly to Tokyo Narita, Japan (NRT), and the plane will then enter service.
www.flightaware.com/live/flight/… Tariffs be damned, Delta taking delivery of a new A350 tomorrow (via Japan): www.flightaware.com/live/flight/…
— JonNYC (@xjonnyc.bsky.social) April 28, 2025 at 11:40 AM
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The strategy here is twofold:
- By first flying the plane to somewhere outside of the EU before flying it to the US, the plane is no longer considered new
- The airline will then exclusively use the plane for international flights, and therefore the plane is never actually imported to the United States
It’s easy enough to fly a wide body jet exclusively internationally (which could include between the US and other international points), though it does take some planning. It’ll become a bit more complicated for narrow body jets, but the idea is to keep doing this until tariffs are either dropped, given the amount of money that we’re talking about.
As a Delta spokesperson explained back in 2019, during the last saga:
“We have made the decision not to import any new aircraft from Europe while these tariffs are in effect. Instead, we have opted to use the new aircraft exclusively for international service, which does not require importation.”
Bottom line
Delta has a lot of Airbus planes on order, so on the surface, you’d think the airline is greatly impacted by Trump’s trade war. CEO Ed Bastian has even said that the airline won’t take deliver of any new Airbus jets with tariffs.
However, Delta appears to be using the same strategy it used back in 2019, when Trump last imposed tariffs on European goods. Delta will simply fly jets to somewhere other than the US, and then they’ll enter the US as used aircraft. As long as they’re exclusively flown internationally, they don’t actually need to be imported. At least that was the strategy several years back, and it seems to be the strategy going forward, based on currently filed plans.
What do you make of Delta’s Airbus import strategy?
Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the Mobile Final Assembly is in a Foreign Trade Zone. So even planes manufactured there would still be subject to tariffs.
I am a DL frequent flyer and I think the federal government should look at this and take action. Every aircraft will go through an initial delivery flight and these types of loophole or abuse should be closed.
DL is probably jumping through a lot of hoops to make this work... This means they will have to cancel a flight to Japan, so they can use this aircraft to fly passengers back... or ferry another...
I am a DL frequent flyer and I think the federal government should look at this and take action. Every aircraft will go through an initial delivery flight and these types of loophole or abuse should be closed.
DL is probably jumping through a lot of hoops to make this work... This means they will have to cancel a flight to Japan, so they can use this aircraft to fly passengers back... or ferry another empty A330 or A350 back if they didn't disrupt an outbound flight. DL does not operate fifth freedom flights out of NRT, so there is no way to de-virgin the aircraft.
If they really want to do this "right", they would fly it to ICN, and use it to do intra-Asia flights, but NRT is an old choice since DL no longer flies to NRT.
It's definitely legal per today's laws, but all it takes is one madman with a pen and and EO and that option becomes unlawful.
TIBs typically have an up to 3-year expiration so that's not a good long term option, but again, one EO penstroke late...
These are all workarounds for one madman and his sycophants in power in the other two branches of government. Instead of workarounds, they should let him know his chaos destruction tour is over.
If the plane needs maintenance while on the ground in US, would that require importing it?
Ok. I see how it is. Time to make Japan our 52nd state.
Or is it 53rd? Where are we on Greenland? I'm so confused. And which of the new states is the one with the cheap eggs?
…. and someone suggested that the USA simply reverted to a British Colony again …. :-)
Bastian being a weasel does come in handy once in a while for situations like this. Less so when his airline is in crisis and he feels like heading out to the Olympics.
WE MADE THE REGULATION -- WE STUPID --
So we can just get around tariffs if someone else uses all our goods before sending it to the US? "Slightly worn sneakers, 30% discount"
Another instance of corporations and billionaires hiring experts to find loopholes (carefully crafted loopholes, perhaps), while we mere mortals always get stuck paying full price.
@Watson- you’re welcome to do the same. Instead of crying about wealthy folks, why don’t you research ways to do what billionaires do. There are many investment vehicles accessible to “mere mortals”…sad if you want to cry on the sidelines, claiming victim status.
Please educate us mere mortals, as a salaried employee, how can I pay 10%-15% income tax like the 1% do? I am all ears.
One way would be Tax-Loss Harvesting - this can significantly reduce your income tax burden
@Vinod
I understand what this is, but as a middle class individual with little in the way of investments outside of my 401k and IRA, it has essentially no effect on my tax bill. Multi-millionaires and billionaires have these mechanisms available to them because they are filthy rich. They have the disposable income to dump money into the stock market and tax loss harvesting can save them millions. As for me, it would have maybe saved me $50-80 this past filing.
@Ole, you've never heard of donating $2 million to a presidential campaign and then requesting a meeting at the White House to plead your case? Come on, think outside the eggs box.
The found a loophole and exploited it. I fail to see the issue. Happens everyday.
It has worked for them before so i don't see why it shouldn't work again. I mean, even last year DL was still taking long haul planes via NRT.
Why do they have to fly the plane to Asia? Wouldn’t it be more fuel efficient to fly it Cancun?
Positioning. They don’t use a350 from Cancun
DL has TechOps facilities/staff at NRT from the NW hub days. These aircraft (and others delivered to NRT over the last few years) won't just fly to NRT and then immediately start flying passenger flights. It'll be there for a couple of weeks and then enter service, just as it would had it been delivered to the US.
But narrow body Airbus jets aren’t subjected to tariffs, right? They make enough of it in Alabama to offset this concern? Otherwise it’d only hurt Alabama jobs
Most of the bits and pieces they use to assemble those jets are still subject to tariffs because Trump and Navarro are both monumentally stupid people.
Here's a parallel scenario. If a private party in California is purchasing an aircraft, the person will have to pay California sales tax on the purchase. However, if the person takes delivery in Oregon (which has no sales tax) and keeps the aircraft in Oregon for at least 120 days, the person will sidestep California sales tax.
This can be similarly prevented as California does for the “use tax” (equivalent to the sales tax rate) on out of state cars. It used to be that once the car is registered for 6 months outside California, no use tax would apply. This has since been changed to a 3 year period (if I remember correctly).
Once they transport it to NRT and thus avoid it being a "new" plane, why won't they be able to fly it domestically? It would seem they shouldn't have to take both of these steps.
You would be paying import on a used plane worth 99.9% of the value of the new plane. No carve out for used.
There certainly is some sort of carve out for not “new” planes, or they wouldn’t fly it via NRT for fun.
“ New Airbus jets are ones that have “no time in service or hours in flight other than for production testing,” or for delivery to the US
In other words, if a new plane operates a flight to a destination outside the EU other than the US, it would no longer be considered a new jet, and therefore potentially wouldn’t be subject to those tariffs.”
Are there other implications of this? Examples; Are the planes going to be registered in another country? Can DL perform their own heavy maintenance here in the US or does it need to be done elsewhere? Obviously it’ll be a good while before the planes are due for a C or D check but curious how that works.
Registering with the FAA doesn't automatically mean that the aircraft are considered imports but CBP could potentially argue that it is effectively an import. Same with maintenance, though they probably would get a TIB for that to cover their bases. There's not a lot of law around it and it's all grey area: given that Delta is quite public about it it's very possible that the government comes after them and they fight it in courts.
I believe US law requires US carrier planes to be registered in the US.
I don't believe so. Foreign registered planes have extreme restrictions on domestic flights (FAA Part 129) - DL would need permission from FAA to fly a foreign registered aircraft domestically.
Maintenance can be performed in the US without any issues.
Airlines typically send planes to another country for maintenance, it's not considered an import.