Ryanair to cancel flights due to Boeing delivery delays

Thomson Reuters

Ryanair has announced a number of cuts to its winter schedule due to delays in the delivery of Boeing aircraft, but Europe's largest airline by passenger numbers said its full-year traffic forecast was unaffected "as yet".

Ryanair said in a statement that it had expected to receive 27 aircraft between September and December.

But due to production delays at the Spirit Fuselage facility in Wichita, combined with Boeing repair and delivery delays in Seattle, it now expects to receive only 14 aircraft between October and December.

Flight cancellations will take effect from the end of October, and will be communicated to all affected passengers by email over the coming days, Ryanair said.

"At this early date, we do not expect these delivery delays will materially affect our full year traffic target of 183.5 million,” group chief executive Michael O'Leary said.

"But if the delays worsen or extend further into the January to March 2024 period, we may have to revisit this figure and possibly adjust it slightly downward," he added.

The budget airline said it will cut two aircraft from those based at Dublin Airport, three from Charleroi airport in Belgium, and five from Italian airports, including Bergamo, Naples and Pisa. There will also be aircraft reductions at East Midlands airport in the UK, Porto in Portugal and Cologne, Germany, it said.

Earlier this year Ryanair unveiled a multibillion-dollar deal for as many as 300 Boeing jets, burying the hatchet with its biggest supplier after an 18-month public feud over prices strained one of aviation's closest partnerships.

The low-cost carrier said it was placing a firm order for 150 of the largest version of Boeing's narrow-body jet family, known as the 737 MAX 10, with options for another 150.

At the time Ryanair said the order would allow it to almost double its traffic to 300 million passengers per year by March 2034 from the 168 million flown to the end of March this year. It currently expects to fly 225 million passengers a year by 2026.