(Bloomberg) -- Ryanair Holdings Plc said a strike at planemaker Boeing Co. has compounded aircraft-delivery delays, crimping the outlook for passenger growth next year at the European budget carrier.
The Irish airline is scheduled to receive 30 planes from Boeing between March and June of 2025, “and if we get 10-15 we’re doing well,” Ryanair Chief Executive Officer Michael O’Leary said Wednesday on a panel with other airline executives in Brussels.
“Everyone in the room is frustrated,” O’Leary said at the Airlines for Europe event, alongside the CEOs of Deutsche Lufthansa AG, EasyJet Plc, IAG SA and Air France-KLM. “We’re all suffering delivery delays.”
O’Leary, who operates an all-Boeing fleet of 737 single-aisle jets, has spoken out repeatedly about late handovers. The US planemaker has fallen further behind schedule this year as one crisis bleeds into the next. In the latest setback, union workers in the Seattle area walked out in mid-September, freezing 737 output.
The Ryanair CEO said he expects a portion of the roughly 20 Max deliveries scheduled between now and year-end to be pushed into 2025, creating a knock-on effect later next year. While the carrier won’t hold back on adding destinations, it is likely to offer fewer flights in some places, he said.
Shares of Ryanair slipped 1.4% in Dublin, bringing losses to 9.9% this year. By comparison, the Bloomberg World Airlines Index has risen 6.8% in 2024.
Ryanair typically introduces planes into its fleet during the early part of the year, when business is slow, then stops deliveries for the summer high season.
Other executives chimed in: Carsten Spohr, the CEO of Lufthansa, said the 777X wide-body jet is now five years overdue after Boeing last week bumped its debut into 2026. He’s “never seen anything like it,” Spohr said.
While Airbus SE, the other half of the global planemaking duopoly, also has challenges, it’s having less problems with widebodies than with narrowbodies, said Air France-KLM CEO Ben Smith.
In addition to the strike and 777X delays, new Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg is also working through cash-flow challenges and quality issues with the 737 Max. Regulators have capped production of Boeing’s top-selling jet in the wake of a nearly catastrophic mid-air panel blowout on a 737 Max 9 in January.
On that front, O’Leary said he’s seen progress from Boeing.
“In the last 12 months, we’ve seen a dramatic improvement in the elimination of defects,” he said.
(Updates with comments on frequencies in fifth paragraph, quality in final paragraph. Adds shares)
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