Major Airline To Limit International Flights Due To Plane Shortage

American Airlines said Thursday it plans to cut international flights next summer due to Boeing’s inability to deliver new 787 Dreamliner aircraft, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The airline cut in flights highlights Boeing’s ongoing inability to deliver enough of its popular aircraft to assorted companies over the last year, the WSJ reported.

American Airlines announced flight cuts to Edinburgh, Shannon, Ireland, and Hong Kong, and it will reduce flights to Shanghai, Beijing and Sydney, according to the WSJ. The company also said it won’t fly to Prague or Dubrovnik, Croatia, and will delay first-time flights from Seattle and Bangalore, India.

“Without these wide-bodies, we simply won’t be able to fly as much internationally as we had planned next summer, or as we did in summer 2019,” American Airlines’ chief revenue officer Vasu Raja wrote in a memo obtained by the WSJ.

Boeing deliveries are projected to start up by April 1, 2022, the WSJ reported. A Boeing spokesperson told the WSJ that the manufacturer deeply regrets “the impact to our customers as we work through the process to resume deliveries of new 787s.”

International travel has been the slowest part of the industry to recover since the COVID-19 pandemic began, and factors including demand and new COVID-19 variants may make continue to slow this sector, the WSJ reported.

United Airlines reportedly expected 8 new Boeing Dreamliner 787s in the second half of 2021. American Airlines originally planned to offer international travel reflecting 89% of its pre-pandemic schedule, but the figure is now closer to 80% after the latest plane shortage.

American Airlines and Boeing did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s requests for comment.