Low-budget airline Ryanair has announced it will be cancelling several flights to and from Belgium from October to March as a direct result of delays to Boeing aircraft deliveries.
Another blow was dealt to the operation of Charleroi Airport on Thursday because of issues at Ryanair. After thousands of passengers saw their flights cancelled at the airport due to a labour dispute between Ryanair and pilots based in Belgium, the budget airline has now confirmed that more flights will be cancelled due to a delay in new aircraft being delivered.
Ryanair had expected to receive 27 aircraft between September and December, but due to production delays at the Spirit Fuselage facility in Wichita, combined with Boeings repair and delivery delays in Seattle, Ryanair now expects to receive only 14 such aircraft in the coming months.
The delay has resulted in the company announcing a number of flight reductions to the Winter 2023 schedule, including to and from Charleroi Airport.
Belgium is hardest hit
"We are working closely with Boeing and their supplier, Spirit, to minimise these delivery delays. It is deeply regrettable that production problems in Wichita, and in Seattle, have yet again delayed Boeing’s contracted deliveries to Ryanair this winter," the company's CEO Michael O’Leary said in a statement.
As a result of these delivery delays, it will be cutting three aircraft from its fleet at the Walloon airport, making it the hardest-hit location. There will also be flight reductions in Dublin, across the four Italian bases, in the East Midlands, Porto, and Cologne.
The flight cancellations will take effect from the end of October, and will be communicated to all affected passengers by email over the coming days. Passengers will be offered alternative flights or full refunds "as they so wish."
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O’Leary added that the company is working with Boeing to try to accelerate deliveries in the January to May 2024 period so that it can enter the Summer 2024 peak travel season with all 57 new Boeing aircraft deliveries, as expected.
"At this stage, we do not believe that these delivery delays will materially affect our annual traffic target of 183.5 million passengers," he said, adding that the company does not rule out revising this forecast downwards if the delays continue.
