Dutch carrier Transavia has been forced to cancel hundreds of flights over the key summer season due to supply chain shortages and a tight maintenance market.

In a statement on its website, the carrier blamed “maintenance work overruns and long lead times to repair damage because the delivery of various aircraft parts has been delayed.” It added: “There is also limited repair availability in the market.”

The Dutch arm of Transavia has more than 40 Boeing 737-800 aircraft, of which five are currently grounded, it said.

The airline added that it had tried to create a bigger reserve buffer of aircraft for the summer season, but that even this had proved insufficient, partly due to delays in the phase-in of additional aircraft.

Much of Transavia’s fleet is leased, and there have been plenty of reports about supply chain and MRO capacity problems affecting lessors’ ability to transition aircraft on time.

In late 2022, for example, Indian carrier Vistara was forced to cancel more than a dozen flights after a leased Boeing 787 failed to arrive on time due to delays to maintenance and completion work. 

Part of the Air France-KLM Group, Transavia reported an operating loss of €172 million for the first quarter of 2023, almost double that of Q1 2022 despite this year’s strong load factor and revenue improvements. The reverse was partly blamed on “grounded aircraft in the Netherlands.”