Airline capacity constrained until 2025 due to delivery delays, spare parts: IATA
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FOX Business' Jeff Flock reports from Newark Liberty International Airport, where flights are being impacted by a plane shortage.
Global airline capacity will be lower than expected this year and stay constrained until 2025 at the earliest, warned IATA director general Willie Walsh, due to delays in new aircraft deliveries and a lack of availability of spare parts.
"I can't see anything really improving or significantly improving probably until 2025 at the earliest and it may even go beyond that," Walsh told Reuters on the sidelines of a conference in Dublin on Wednesday.
Airlines, hoping to put years of pandemic restrictions behind them, expect travel demand to recover to 2019 levels and above this year, but the lack of planes to meet demand could put a brake on growth.
Global airline industry body International Air Transport Association (IATA) Director General Willie Walsh attends an interview with Reuters in Doha, Qatar, June 19, 2022. Picture taken June 19, 2022. REUTERS/Imad Creidi (Reuters Photos)
Aircraft manufacturers Boeing Co and Airbus are feeling widespread pressure from bottlenecks in supply chains and that is leading to delivery delays, while Walsh said that airline bosses were also telling him there were not enough spare parts, particularly for engines.
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"It means capacity will be slightly lower than the industry had forecast," Walsh said, adding that he would expect the reduction for this year to be in the low single digits range.
| Ticker | Security | Last | Change | Change % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| BA | THE BOEING CO. | 156.54 | +1.10 | +0.71% |
Last week, Boeing announced a fresh supplier-related halt to 737 deliveries while industry sources have said Airbus has started notifying airlines about delivery delays in 2024 for its best-selling A320neo family of jets.
An Airbus A321 is being assembled in the final assembly line hangar at the Airbus U.S. Manufacturing Facility in Mobile, Alabama September 13, 2015. REUTERS/Michael Spooneybarger/File Photo (Reuters Photos)
Ryanair, Europe's biggest airline, warned on Wednesday it would trim its July schedule because it expects around 10 Boeing 737 MAX aircraft to be delayed due to manufacturing issues.
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Walsh said he did not expect chaos at airports this summer. Last year, labour shortages and the sudden uptick in demand after COVID-19 in Europe forced airlines to cancel large numbers of flights and scale back capacity.
A photo taken on May 23, 2021, shows a Boeing 737-8AS Ryanair passenger plane from Athens, Greece. (Photo by PETRAS MALUKAS/AFP via Getty Images)
"I don't think it's going to be a mess because I think what we're seeing now is airlines adjusting their capacity early enough to face these last-minute problems," he said.
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Asked about the prospects for sustainable aviation fuel, which airlines are counting on to meet net-zero targets, Walsh said that Europe was set to lose out to the United States due to the incentives provided by the Inflation Reduction Act.