WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - American Airlines Group Inc. (AAL) on Thursday announced that it would be cutting down on the number of its international flights during the next summer as there had been long delays in delivery of Boeing's 787 Dreamliners. According to reports, Boeing will compensate the airlines for the delay.
The delivery of Boeing's wide-body Dreamliners were stopped for a major part of last year as the manufacturer and federal regulators took a second look at production flaws and required fixes.
The delays in production surface just when big Dreamliner customers like American and United Airlines are preparing for a hectic summer of international travel, after a two-year gap for what they expect to be a big summer for international travel after a two-year pandemic slump.
According to the original plan, American Airlines planned to bring back 89 percent of its 2019 international long-haul flying in the summer of 2022, but that has been turned back to around 80 percent.
Vasu Raja, American's chief revenue officer, said in an email to employees, 'This weekend we will load our summer 2022 long-haul schedule, but it will not have the growth we initially expected. Boeing continues to be unable to deliver the 787s we have on order, including as many as 13 aircraft that were slated to be in our fleet by this winter. Without these widebodies, we simply won't be able to fly as much internationally as we had planned next summer, or as we did in summer.'
As per the new plan, American Airlines won't serve Edinburgh, Scotland or Shannon, Ireland. The Airlines will also discontinue its Hong Kong service.
American also won't fly back from Prague and Dubrovnik, Croatia. The airline will also cut down the flights to Shanghai, Beijing and Sydney. Trans-Pacific travel is said to be the last to pick up, but in a very slow manner. American also plans to add non-stop service between New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport and Doha in June.
United Airlines didn't tell in detail how the delays could affect its international flying next year but said it was working with Boeing 'to know how the delivery delays can affect our schedule.'
Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX
© 2021 AFX News
