Ryanair’s CEO Michael O’Leary said that in his 30 years in the airline industry he had never seen capacity constraints like those he’s facing now.
The longtime chief of Europe’s largest airline laid out the difficulties that Boeing’s delayed deliveries are creating for his carrier in an interview with Reuters Wednesday.
“We were supposed to get 20 deliveries before the end of December. They’ll probably come now in January and February, and that’s fine. We’ll have them in time for next summer,” O’Leary said. “The big issue for Ryanair is we’re due 30 aircraft in March, April, May and June of next year, and how many of those will we get?”
“I think we’re clearly going to walk back our traffic growth for next year, because I don’t think we’re going to get all those 30 aircraft,” O’Leary added.
Boeing has been struggling in recent weeks after a strike by its largest union brought the production of commercial aircraft to a virtual standstill. Negotiations have reportedly reached a stalemate.
Boeing’s CEO said late last week the company was planning to cut 17,000 jobs as part of a restructuring aimed reduced costs, and the plane maker said this week it would raise up to $25 billion through stock and debt offerings along with a $10 billion credit agreement.
The U.S. plane maker is also trying to persuade regulators to allow it to resume production of its 737 Max aircraft.
Meanwhile, Airbus is also facing delays of its own due to supply chain issues. The European plane maker said in July that it won’t be able to deliver the number of aircraft it initial predicted for 2024, and deliveries scheduled for the next two years are also at risk of being delayed.
O’Leary also pointed out that Boeing’s delays would have an impact on Ryanair’s finances.
“We want to avoid next year what we had this year,” he said. “We had geared up, we crewed up the 50 aircraft, and then we only got 30…we were overcrowded, over-staffed. We took a significant cost penalty this year.”