Budget airline Transavia is cancelling flights because of a shortage of planes for the second year running.

After an announcement earlier this month that 5% of flights would be scrapped, the airline has now said flights in May and June will be affected.

Travel organisations are busy making alternative bookings but not all can be changed, a spokesman of the sector’s umbrella organisation ANVR told broadcaster NOS. This is particularly the case since flights are being cancelled at short notice.

The airline was to have added five new planes to its fleet before May but three are not ready, Transavia operational director Marloes van Laake told current affairs programme Nieuws en Co.

Some planes cannot be used because of parts for maintenance work are being delayed while others are out of service because of damage caused by lightning. “All this means we have fewer planes to work with. If we could have foreseen it we would have been able to deal with it,” she said.

In all seven Transavia planes are now grounded.

The ANVR did say Transavia had failed to estimate the problem correctly, duping individual passengers and organisations alike. “The May and summer holidays are the most important dates in the calendar for travel organisations,” the spokesman said.

Transavia said it expects the problems to be solved before the July and August holiday season.