For some time Ryanair was confident that the latest delivery delays from manufacturer Boeing would have little or no impact. Now the Irish lowcoster has to announce that it will have to shorten the 2023/24 winter flight schedule because significantly fewer B737-Max-200s will be delivered.

Ryanair was actually supposed to take delivery of up to 2023 Boeing 27-Max-737s between September and December 200. The company headquarters, which is located in Swords, Ireland, are now expecting that only 14 units will be delivered by the end of this year. In addition, some existing machines will be down over the winter due to major maintenance work.

“Ryanair apologizes for these inevitable cuts to the 2023 winter schedule. Ryanair has no replacement aircraft this winter as scheduled maintenance work is required on our entire fleet of over 550 aircraft to keep all aircraft operational for the largest summer 2024 schedule,” Ryanair said in a message.

The consequence of this: The low-cost airline has to reduce its offering in the upcoming 2023/24 winter flight schedule. The bases affected are Charleroi, Dublin, Bergamo, Naples, Pisa, East Midlands, Porto and Cologne/Bonn. There are fewer aircraft available at these airports than originally planned, so the flight schedule has to be shortened. There are three aircraft at the Belgian airport, two at the Irish capital and one aircraft each at the other airports mentioned.

“We are working closely with Boeing and its supplier Spirit to minimize these delivery delays. It is very unfortunate that production problems in Wichita and Seattle have once again delayed Boeing's contracted deliveries to Ryanair this winter. We are in regular dialogue with Boeing and our primary objective is to ensure delivery of all 57 contracted B737 aircraft by the end of May 2024, allowing the Ryanair fleet to grow to over 600 aircraft for our largest summer flight program to date. The flight cancellations will come into effect at the end of October and will be communicated to all affected passengers by email in the coming days. Passengers will be offered a rebooking to other flights or a full refund, depending on their preference. We sincerely apologize to our passengers for any inconvenience caused by the delivery delays this winter. At this early stage, we do not expect these delivery delays to materially impact our full-year target of 183,5 million passengers. However, if the delays worsen or extend further into the period from January to March 2024, we may have to reconsider this number and revise it slightly downwards,” explains CEO Michael O'Leary.