American Airlines says it is revising its summer schedule to reduce flights because of "Boeing's continued inability to delivery our 787-8 aircraft."
"Due to the continued impact of Boeing's delayed delivery of our new 787-8 aircraft, this weekend, we were forced to make adjustments to our summer schedule," American Airlines said in a statement Friday. "We were hoping to receive at least four new aircraft by April, which are unlikely to arrive, so we took immediate action to prevent stranding our customers."
The Fort Worth-based airline told workers in an internal message it expected 13 delayed 787-8s to be delivered but only received 10 and the rest of the aircraft won't come until 2023.
The airline said it will delay the launch of its flight from Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport to Ben Gurion Airport southeast of Tel Aviv which was planned for June.
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American said Friday it would temporarily suspend international routes from DFW to Santiago, Chile, as well as Seattle to London and Los Angeles to Sydney. In addition, it will reduce flights between Miami and Sao Paulo to once daily.
American said Boeing has promised compensation. Chicago-based Boeing has been unable to deliver 787s because of production flaws including gaps between panels of the carbon-composite fuselage.
Fort Worth-based American had hoped to operate 89% of its summer 2019 schedule in summer 2022, but scaled that back to 80% in December because it won't have enough planes. It dropped flights to Hong Kong, Edinburgh, Scotland, and Shannon, Ireland, and decided not to bring back 2010 destinations including Prague.
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Boeing has declined to say when it expects to resume shipments of 787s, which must be approved by the Federal Aviation Administration.
Despite the disruptions to its planned schedule, American says it will continue to offer almost 6,000 peak daily departures each month during the summer, which it says is more than any other airline.
