Ryanair has announced that the launch of its services from Edinburgh will be delayed due a strike at Boeing, the manufacturer of the planes it needs for the new routes.

The opening will be postponed for six weeks, and is now scheduled for 5 November, rather than 23 September, as originally anticipated. Boeing is not able to deliver the new aircraft that Ryanair purchased for its new Edinburgh operations.

Ryanair’s deputy chief executive, Michael Cawley, made the announcement on Wednesday: “We sincerely regret the postponement of the opening of our Edinburgh base but unfortunately the two new aircraft, which we had reserved for this purpose, are now indefinitely delayed due to a strike by Boeing employees”. Cawley continued his comments saying that by 5 November the carrier would have sufficient capacity within its fleet to launch the services, regardless of delays caused by Boeing.

The company’s executive indicated that anyone who had purchased a ticket for travel during the six week period that the launch of service is delayed will receive full refunds, during the coming week. He added: “We sincerely apologise to all our passengers for the inconvenience caused by this forced change to our schedule. However, we look forward to seeing our Edinburgh passengers on board our state of the art aircraft from 05-Nov”.

www.ryanair.com