Irish low-cost giant Ryanair has scaled back passenger number ambitions for its coming financial year to just under 200 million after confirming it now expects to take delivery of only 40 of the 57 Boeing 737 Max jets it was due to take by June.
Ryanair had in late January indicated it expected seven of 57 Max aircraft not to be delivered by the end of June amid continued production challenges at the US manufacturer. It now says it expects 17 of the jets not to be delivered in time for this summer’s peak.
“We are very disappointed at these latest Boeing delivery delays, but we continue to work with Boeing to maximise the number of new 737 aircraft we receive by the end of June, which we can confidently release for sale to customers during the Summer ’24 peak,” says Ryanair group chief executive Michael O’Leary.
”We will now work with Boeing to take delayed aircraft deliveries during August and September 2024 to help Boeing reduce their delivery backlog.”
As a result of the delays Ryanair says it is removing 10 aircraft lines worth of flying from its July, August and September schedules. This will be done through reducing frequencies rather than cutting routes, and it says has been focused on places like Dublin, Milan Malpensa, Warsaw Modlin and four Portuguese airports where it says ”costs are rising faster than inflation” this year.
As a result the airline expects passenger levels for the financial year running to 31 March 2025 to increase from 184 million to between 198-200 million. Ryanair had originally been targeting carrying 205 million passengers in its 2025 financial year.
O’Leary adds that Boeing continues to have Ryanair’s ”wholehearted support as they work through these temporary challenges” and is confident the senior management team will resolve these production delays and quality control issues.
”We expect these latest Boeing delivery delays… combined with the grounding of up to 20% of our Airbus competitors’ A320 fleets in Europe, will lead to more constrained capacity and slightly higher air fares for consumers in Europe in Summer 2024,” he adds.
