British Airways and Virgin Atlantic are among the carriers that have had to ground their aircraft and postpone entire routes due to a shortage of Rolls Royce Trent 1000 engines.

This is causing airfares to rise as competition between airlines tightens, and insiders warn flight cancellations due to supply chain issues will peak next year.

revealed in an example IndependentThe cost of a hand luggage-only British Airways ticket on the Heathrow-Cape Town route on 11 April currently stands at £2,922 round-trip; this is almost three times the price on BA to travel to and from Johannesburg for the same dates.

Last month, BA canceled this winter’s resumption of daily flights between Heathrow and Kuala Lumpur, blaming “delays in engine and parts deliveries from Rolls-Royce” by removing 200,000 seats from existing capacity between the UK and Southeast Asia. ”.

Virgin Atlantic also blames shortages on Rolls Royce after London delays planned reopening flights Flights to Accra in Ghana and Tel Aviv in Israel will continue until next winter, and services to Cape Town will also be suspended a month earlier than planned.

Paul Charles, former communications director at Virgin Atlantic and now chief executive of The PC Agency, said: “Engine problems have caused huge problems for airlines and consumers.

“Airline planning teams have had to rewrite the rule books on how to deploy their fleets in the most popular destinations they need to protect, and gamble on which routes will pay the price and be deleted from their networks.

“Prices for consumers will continue to rise; many routes will see record prices in 2025. If you want to go abroad next year, be prepared to pay the price is the message.”

Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 engines fitted to relatively older Boeing 787s are now at the point where many components must be replaced in accordance with strict rules designed to ensure the safety of aircraft.

However, industry insiders say that during the height of the epidemic, many manufacturers scaled back their operations and laid off staff as demand for components requiring precision engineering decreased.

A spokesperson for Rolls-Royce said “every company in our industry is suffering from this” and said: “We continue to work with all our customers to minimize the impact of limited availability of spare parts.

“We are taking decisive action and moving quickly to prioritize the resources needed to mitigate the impact of current industry-wide supply chain constraints, which is a top priority for our Civil Aviation division.”

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Nick Cunningham, aerospace and defense analyst at Agency Partners, previously said: Independent He said supply chain issues could take years to resolve.

“This is a very deep and persistent problem that will take a long time to fix, because it will take a long time to educate enough people and then you have to hold on to them,” he said. “This starts with educating kids in college. This gives you an idea of ​​the timescale involved. “It will take years.”

He also noted that the disruptions were not limited to Rolls-Royce engines but affected nearly every aspect of modern aviation production.

Robert Boyle, former strategy director at BA’s parent company IAG, said airlines were frustrated and “struggling with grounded planes”.

But pointing out that prices are now higher than pre-pandemic levels, he also said that the lack of competition has served to increase passenger fares: “Aviation’s profitability is largely driven by supply/demand balances, and shortages will help support overall.” pricing.”

Rob Burgess, founder of frequent flyer website Head for Points, was one of an estimated 15,000 passengers affected by the early termination of Virgin’s flights from Heathrow to Cape Town.

Mr Burgess warned that canceled flights to South Africa next Easter would cause significant problems “falling through the school holidays and two public holiday periods”.

A Rolls-Royce spokesman added: “Over the last 12 months we have introduced a number of initiatives to reduce the impact on our customers. Our Trent 1000 Task Force is working rapidly to deliver these improvements, leveraging our world-class engineering and technology talent.

“These changes are already having a positive impact. So far this year we have increased Trent 1000 supply chain output by a third, making more components available and minimizing the time engines spend in our Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MRO) centres.

“We are confident that these bold changes, combined with our long-term investment plans, will deliver continued improvement to our customers.”