Icelandair has made changes to its flight schedule until 15 September 2019 as it is expected that the suspension of Boeing 737 MAX aircraft will last longer than anticipated.
To minimise the impact on its passengers, Icelandair has already added three leased aircraft to its fleet for the summer season. Furthermore, the Company is now working on the leasing of an additional Boeing 767-300 aircraft.
Icelandair will start implementing these changes in the next few days and Icelandair’s service representatives will contact the passengers affected.
With these changes, the total seat capacity from 15 July to 15 September will decrease by 5% from what the Company had estimated. However, following these changes the number of available seats during the period will still increase by 10% year-on-year. Icelandair’s emphasis will continue to remain on increasing the number of passengers to and from Iceland and as of today, the number of bookings by passengers travelling to Iceland during the period June-August has increased by over 30% compared to the same period last year.
The financial impact of the suspension of the Boeing 737 MAX aircraft is uncertain as the amount of compensation from the aircraft manufacturer is still under review.
Icelandair dismisses 45 pilots
These include 21 newcomers who had begun working as pilots on the company’s Boeing 737 MAX aircraft this summer. The airline announced the dismissals at a training session with a group of pilots. Also, employment contracts were terminated with 24 pilots who began training on the MAX engines last fall.
Um, these are the only 45 unemployments directly related to the plane, so apart from that I’m not sure what you are referring to. But yeah, weird move by the airline imo.
Sadly not a weird move, if the airline can’t use that aircraft they have no need for those pilots as due to type ratings, which are time consuming AND expensive they can’t just transfer to another Fleet within Icelandic Air.
This on top of WOW also closing up shop so aviation not doing so great at present there.
As well as B737 Max pilots being affected, ground type rated engineers will also be facing issues too long term unless it’s resolved quickly.
They do need to have something compete with the A321 Neo which fills that 200 - 250 market
Airlines will certainty be using the vulnerable position of boeing at the moment as leverage for discounts on orders
Also remember the smaller airlines lack ability to hedge oil prices, something Ryanair does very well
My problem with this is that is Icelandair shuts down which it most likely will in the future. There will be no major carriers to serve iceland. Making a huge gap that will have no one to fill it.
I would say its very unlikely to fold in the future! They are having an issue with the aircarft, which is no fault of their own, which means they have no requiremnt for the B737 pilots.
