Sunwing has said that all flight services during the coming winter season will now be operated without the Boeing 737 Max 8.
The move has been prompted by the ongoing worldwide grounding of the Boeing 737 Max jets. Sunwing has been quick to stress that the move has been taken in order to "maintain customers' vacation plans."
President of tour operations for Sunwing Andrew Dawson commented: “The worldwide grounding of the Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft created operational difficulties for us during the summer months when we did not have additional capacity within our fleet to replace this aircraft type.
"In order to maintain our customers’ vacation plans, it was necessary to contract flying with third-party carriers and make schedule changes or cancellations to over 3,000 flights.
"We acknowledge the options our customers were presented with to maintain their travel plans may have caused them an inconvenience and we appreciate the understanding and flexibility shown by both our travel agent partners and our customers during this period."
The new schedule comes into effect on 5 November and runs until mid-May 2020 using Boeing 737-800 aircraft.
Sunwing has said that should the Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft become available during the course of the winter, the company will evaluate opportunities to add capacity or reintegrate them into the fleet at that time.