Boeing needs to 'get its
[act] together': Ryanair chief
29 JULY,
2019 - SOURCE: FLIGHT DASHBOARD - BY: VICTORIA BRYAN
Ryanair chief executive
Michael O'Leary has expressed concern about slips in the timeframe for the
Boeing 737 Max's expected return to service.
The budget carrier said on 16 July that it expected the Max to be back
in service by December, but after reporting first-quarter results O'Leary today
said that this now seemed like it would slip into January.
"We were expecting 58 aircraft for summer 2020; that's now 30 at
best. It may well move to 20, could move to 10, or zero if Boeing don't get
their shit together pretty quickly with the regulators," he told analysts.
O'Leary cited Southwest's decision to remove the aircraft from its
schedules until January, and said the latest he had heard from Boeing was that
they now planned to submit the software amendment in October, rather than
September.
"It's very difficult to deal with the Boeing delays, because they
keep getting delayed further and further. Up until mid-July, we were expecting
them to be back flying in September. Now it looks like January next year,"
he says.
Ryanair will not be taking delivery of any Max aircraft until the
aircraft had been declared safe to fly by both US and European regulators,
O'Leary says.
If deliveries slip further, that could cut Ryanair's planned passenger
numbers for the full year to March 2021 from the revised 157 million to 155
million or even 153 million, he estimates.
Ryanair is in talks with Boeing over a new aircraft order for the
period from 2023 onwards, O'Leary reveals, but he says those discussions are
being hindered by the airframer's "inability" to get the Max back
into service. Ryanair is also in talks with Airbus, which is pricing "very
aggressively" at the moment, he notes.
"Boeing is not at a point yet where we see value in a new aircraft
order for the period from 2023 onwards," adds O'Leary.
He says Ryanair will be announcing base cuts and closures as a result
of the Max delays over the next week or two.
It is impossible to sign up Airbus aircraft for next summer to replace
the Max shortfall, he says, because there is no availability and it will hurt
the pricing of second-hand A320s. The Lauda fleet of A320s is already planned
to grow from 20 aircraft this summer to 32 for next summer.
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