Ryanair Holdings CEO Michael O’Leary has revealed plans to invest €580m in transitioning engine maintenance in-house over the next five to ten years.
Mr O’Leary indicated that Ryanair will construct new engine shops, with one likely in Western Europe and another in Eastern Europe, expected to be announced within the next twelve months but to take a further three to four years to complete.
Ryanair’s existing heavy maintenance facilities are at Glasgow Prestwick, Frankfurt Hahn, and Shannon, with maintenance bases are at Dublin, London Stansted, Madrid Barajas, Milan Bergamo, Porto, Nuremberg, and Vienna.
Ryanair recently completed work on an MRO hangar at Sevilla and started work on a new MRO hangar at Dublin International as well as the expansion of similar facilities in Kaunas International, Kraków John Paul II International, and Wroclaw
Ryanair has also opened an engineering academy at Glasgow Prestwick to support maintenance operations for its ambition of maintaining a fleet of 800 aircraft by 2034.
Ryanair announced plans for a Dublin MRO hangar in 2023 but only started works in late January 2025 after Aer Lingus dropped its appeal against the €40m investment “in respect of” the previously granted planning permission.
Michael O’Leary shared “we do almost all our own airframe maintenance. I think with supply chain challenges and only two providers, Pratt & Whitney and General Electric, we need to start repairing our own engines.”
The airline’s fleet of 624 includes
- Ryanair AOC 116 B737-8-200s (CFM International Leap engines) and 205 B737-800s (CFM56 engines)
- Malta Air 133 B737-800s (CFM56 engines) and 43 B737-8-200s (LEAP engines)
- Buzz Poland 57 B737-800s and one B737-700 (CFM56 engines) and 14 B737-8-200s (LEAP engines)
- Lauda Europe. 26 A320-200s (15 CFM56 engines and 11 V2500 International Aero engines)
- Ryanair English AOC 14 B737-800s (CFM56 engines)
- Malta Air also has one Learjet 45 and three Learjet 45XRs (Honeywell Aerospace TFE31 engines).
