The new AirPods boxes were printed in 2018: https://twitter.com/horwitz/status/1110977803183374341

But even if we take copyright year to be the same as the printing year, Apple would almost certainly have just made a new box if they'd known well in advance they were going to cancel AirPower. This still shows an unusual level of disorganization on their part, which is surprising enough that I'm willing to believe a sudden decision was made.

There's a good chance that we'll see this somewhat proven in that Apple will probably get that box discontinued within the next couple weeks.

Who cares - they delay it, reprint and repackage it. Apple is a massive company that’s gone through monumental efforts to enforce quality (in the past). They could’ve at least done that.