The Irish airliner Ryanair announced it will temporarily cut flights starting this autumn over the Boeing 737 grounding. (source: Sme)
When two Boeing 737 Max planes crashed shortly after their take-off within six months, killing all passengers on board, authorities ordered their immediate grounding in March 2019.
This has led to several problems that airliners now have to deal with. The Irish low-cost airlines Ryanair, which operates at the airports in Bratislava and Košice, wants to cut flights temporarily from this autumn, the Sme daily reported.
In addition, other airliners, including Flydubai, Smartwings, and Turkish Airlines, are also lacking planes after the 737 Max grounding.
Turkish Airlines gives up on Košice
Turkish Airlines has meanwhile confirmed it will cancel the Istanbul – Košice flights from September 2019, owing to the lack of planes.
“The company is moving planes, which fly to Košice, to other routes at big European and worldwide airports, where the competition is really strong,” Košice airport head Michael Tmej said, as quoted by the Korzár daily.
The ninth largest airliner in the world launched flights from Istanbul to Košice in June 2016, operating four times a week.
Meanwhile, Ryanair wants to hold talks with the airports to name the loss-making routes that should be subsequently cut.
“Ryanair could negotiate lower airport fees and demand that more be done by airports to attract more passengers and, subsequently, increase the profitability of the route,” Jozef Rybár, spokesperson for the Pelikán travel agency, told Sme.
