Ryanair will be forced to trim summer schedules as it confirmed that expected deliveries of new Boeing aircraft deliveries will fall short.
Europe’s largest airline revealed that Boeing expects to deliver just 40 of the 57 planned B737 Max 8 aircraft that were due to join the fleet before the end of June.
Group chief executive Michael O’Leary warned: “We expect these latest Boeing delivery delays, which regrettably are beyond Ryanair’s control, 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.”
Ryanair’s current summer schedule was based on receiving a minimum of 50 new aircraft.
But it will now have to reduce flying schedules for 10 aircraft for the peak summer months of July, August and September.
“This will cause some minor schedule changes in the context of Ryanair’s 600 aircraft fleet and will reduce frequencies on existing routes rather than cutting new routes,” the airline said.
Schedule cuts have been implemented at some “higher cost” airports, most notably Dublin, Milan Malpensa, Warsaw Modlin and four Portuguese airports where the airline claimed that costs are rising faster than inflation in 2024.
The schedule changes will reduce full year traffic to just under 200 million passengers compared to an original target of 205 million.
“Ryanair will now work with Boeing to accept aircraft deliveries during the peak months of July, August and September 2024, but given these delivery uncertainties, it will be unable to put these aircraft on sale for peak summer ’24,” Ryanair said.
O’Leary added: “We are very disappointed at these latest Boeing delivery delays, but we continue to work with Boeing to maximise the number of new B737 aircraft we receive by the end of June, which we can confidently release for sale to customers during the summer ’24 peak.”
He added: “Boeing continues to have Ryanair’s wholehearted support as they work through these temporary challenges, and we are confident that their senior management team will resolve these production delays and quality control issues.
“We will now work with Boeing to take delayed aircraft deliveries during August and September 2024 to help Boeing reduce their delivery backlog.”