(Reuters) – Ryanair announced on Thursday a reduction in flights planned for this winter due to delivery delays of Boeing planes, without specifying the number of passengers impacted and while ensuring that its traffic forecasts for the year were not affected “for now”.
Ryanair shares lost 2% at 8:00 GMT.
Ryanair explains in a press release that it now expects to receive only 14 of the 27 aircraft deliveries initially planned between September and December. A decrease linked to production delays at Spirit’s fuselage manufacturing plant in Wichita, United States, combined with repair and delivery delays from Boeing.
The flight cancellations will take effect from the end of October and will be communicated to all affected passengers in the coming days, Ryanair said.
“At this stage, we do not believe that these delivery delays will materially affect our annual traffic target of 183.5 million passengers,” said Michael O’Leary, managing director of the group, who does not however rule out revising this downward forecast if the delays continue.
The low-cost airline will remove three planes from its fleet at Charleroi airport in Belgium, two at Dublin and five at Italian airports including Bergamo, Naples and Pisa. There will also be a reduction in the number of aircraft at East Midlands Airport in the UK, Porto in Portugal and Cologne in Germany.
Ryanair had planned to receive 57 Boeing planes between September 2023 and May 2024 and said it was working with the American manufacturer to be ready for the 2024 summer season.
(Yadarisa Shabong in Bangalore and Conor Humphries; Victor Goury-Laffont, edited by Kate Entringer)
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