Ryanair goes shopping. Comes out with Boeing 737 MAX aircraft

Ryanair has always been one to take advantage of a downturn, with the airline lodging a new order with The Boeing Company for 75 Boeing 737 MAX aircraft.

 
The signing ceremony – Image, Ryanair.

The Irish low-cost carrier has 210 of the type on order from Boeing. Ryanair again selected the 737 8-200, a higher-capacity version of the 737-8, citing the airplane’s additional seats and improved fuel efficiency and environmental performance.

Ryanair is the launch customer for the high-capacity 737-8 variant, having placed its first order for 100 airplanes and 100 options in late 2014, followed by firm orders of 10 airplanes in 2017 and 25 in 2018. The 737 8-200 will enable Ryanair to configure its aircraft with 197 seats, increasing revenue potential, and reduce fuel consumption by 16 percent compared to the airline’s previous airplanes.

 
Boeing Ryanair 737 MAX 8 200 – Image, The Boeing Company

The airline expects to take the first deliveries of aircraft from early 2021, which will be delivered over a 4-year period between Spring 2021 and December 2024.

The signing was carried out in Washington DC, as both companies are trying to work their way of the traffic downturn.

In Quotes

Boeing’s President & CEO Dave Calhoun said:

“Ryanair will continue to play a leading role in our industry when Europe recovers from the Covid-19 pandemic and air traffic returns to growth across the continent. We are gratified that Ryanair is once again placing its confidence in the Boeing 737 family and building their future fleet with this enlarged firm order.

Boeing remains focused on safely returning the full 737 fleet to service and on delivering the backlog of airplanes to Ryanair and our other customers in the new year. We firmly believe in this airplane and we will continue the work to re-earn the trust of all of our customers.”

Ryanair’s Group CEO Michael O’Leary said:

“We are pleased and proud to place this enlarged order with Boeing, who have successfully completed the return to service of the Boeing MAX aircraft. The Boeing MAX is a fabulous aircraft with more seats, more leg room, lower fares, lower fuel consumption, and it sets incredible environmental standards, including 40% less noise and lower CO2 emissions.

We hope to take delivery of at least 50 of these aircraft in 2021, subject to Boeing recovering its manufacturing output to deliver them. For as long as the Covid-19 pandemic depresses air travel, we will use these new aircraft to replace some of our older Boeing NG fleet, which will remain  grounded until pre-Covid demand returns. But as soon as the Covid-19 virus recedes – and it will in 2021 with the rollout of multiple effective vaccines – Ryanair and our partner airports across Europe will – with these environmentally efficient aircraft – rapidly restore flights and schedules, recover lost traffic and help the nations of Europe recover their tourism industry, and get young people back to work across the cities, beaches, and ski resorts of the EU.

We sincerely thank our partners in Boeing, who have worked closely with us over the last 18 months to reschedule aircraft deliveries, to provide fair compensation to reflect those costs which Ryanair has incurred through these delivery delays and to agree this new enlarged aircraft order. We are working closely with Boeing and our senior pilot professionals to assist our regulator EASA to certify these aircraft in Europe, and to complete the training of our pilots and crews across our 3 new Boeing MAX simulators in Dublin and Stansted.

We are extremely grateful to our shareholders who have recently supported a €1.25 billion fundraising, without which we could not have placed this large but very timely aircraft order during a once in a century downturn in the airline industry. We believe our people will enjoy flying these exciting new aircraft, which will, we hope, allow us to recruit/train many thousands of new pilots and cabin crew over the next 5 years. The Board and people of Ryanair are confident that our customers will love these new aircraft, they will enjoy the new interiors, the more generous leg room, the lower fuel consumption and the quieter noise performance, but most of all, they will love the lower fares, which these aircraft will enable Ryanair to offer not just in 2021, but for the next decade, as Ryanair leads a strong recovery of Europe’s aviation and tourism industry out of the 2020 Covid-19 crisis.”

Always one to take advantage of a downturn

Whilst no pricing has been announced, Ryanair has always made a habit of making mass orders during a downturn – taking advantage of a situation and getting aircraft out of it at a price that’s good for them. It doesn’t take the most gigantic leap in the world, that whilst the airline will be paying a pretty penny, it won’t be paying anywhere near list price for them.

With the airline happy to order the new planes, there will be some convincing to be done that its the right plane to fly.

Although this quote O’Leary’s thoughts…

Quote of the Day: “Frankly, we don’t care what you call it…as long as you buy our cheap fares and fly our on-time flights, you can call it whatever you like.” ⁦@Ryanair⁩ CEO Michael O’Leary when asked if the #737Max name is so damaged, it should be re-branded. pic.twitter.com/yAAAC2NiNG

— Phil LeBeau (@Lebeaucarnews) December 3, 2020

An interesting side note…

Boeing mentions the word “MAX” once in its press release, whilst Ryanair mentions it six times. Almost as if they want to rebrand the aircraft or something. 

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