Ryanair is poised to receive five Boeing Max 8-200s earlier than expected this year, in the latest indication that the airframer’s delivery performance is improving after years of constrained output and delays.
Speaking during Ryanair’s fiscal first quarter earnings call on 21 July, group chief executive Michael O’Leary said the “quality and the timeliness” of Boeing deliveries has “improved dramatically” over the past year.
“Boeing hit their 38 [Max aircraft] production rate in May and they did so again in June, and I think that’s testament to the good job Kelly Ortberg, Stephanie Pope and her team are doing, particularly on the ground in Seattle,” O’Leary says of the chief executives of Boeing and Boeing Commercial Airplanes respectively.
Amid that improvement, Boeing has asked that Ryanair take five of 29 remaining Max jets – from the first of its two outstanding orders – in August, ahead of schedule.
“It doesn’t suit us because we can’t deploy them, but we’re happy [to take them early] so we guarantee we won’t have any delivery delays running into summer ’26,” O’Leary says, referencing the airline’s policy of inducting new jets in the low season.
Ryanair is now “cautiously confident” that it will have the outstanding 29 CFM International Leap-1B-powered jets in its fleet for summer 2026, completing deliveries from that order and bringing its capacity up to a level that it had previously intended to reach 12 months earlier.
Looking further ahead, Boeing has advised Ryanair that it expects Max 7 and Max 10 certification to happen in “late 2025”, O’Leary says, in positive news for the Irish carrier, which is expecting to receive its first of the larger type in 2027 from a 300-unit order for Max-family jets placed in 2023.
“Boeing have confirmed in writing their confidence they will deliver those first 15 Max 10s in the Spring of 2027, in time for the summer 2027 peak travel,” O’Leary says.
“These aircraft will transform Ryanair’s economics and further widen the cost gap between us and every other airline in Europe,” he adds.
Ryanair more than doubled its net and operating profits in the April-June quarter, to €820 million ($955 million) and €913 million respectively, although it notes this was largely driven by the favourable timing of Easter this year and weak prior-year figures caused by the airline’s conflict with online travel agencies in the first half of 2024.
Still, the carrier expects to recover most of the 7% drop in fares seen in the year ending 31 March 2025 during its current fiscal year.
It says demand is “robust” and the business remains on track to achieve a 3% rise in passengers to 206 million for the year – a moderate increase reflecting Boeing delivery delays.
