Air fares will rise marginally across Europe this summer due to aircraft delays, Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary told the Destinations Global Leaders tourism conference in Dublin.
Mr O’Leary told an aviation panel moderated by Travel Extra editor Eoghan Corry that Ryanair initially planned to take delivery of 29 new Boeing aircraft ahead of summer 2025, but those are now scheduled for delivery in August, September, and October, with full capacity anticipated in 2026.
Mr O’Leary said: “The schedule for summer 2025 is intact but it is not as large as it could be. Our plan this year was the carry 250m passengers but because of Boeing delivery delays we will probably do around 206m so we are running about 5pc behind our original growth plan. All airlines are the same. Boeing get a lot of unfair negative PR. Airbus are just as bad We are all stuck with it, both short haul and long haul, and this is not going to solve itself in the next four or five years.
Boeing are getting better, the strike is over. We think they will get back up to 38 aircraft a month rising to 42 by the end of 2025. We were due 29 aircraft in advance of the summer of 2025. We are getting none of those. We are getting them August, September, October so we will have them in 2026 and will carry 250m passengers in 2026.
It is frustrating, the outcome of that will be marginally higher airfares through the summer of 2025 across Europe. Last year our fares went down by 8pc which is probably due to the boycott by the egregious online travel agency pirates. They were accounting for about 15pc of our volumes but particularly the summer volumes, people travelling on Saturday to Saturday, civil servants, teachers, you know, that business moved away from us, it looked like to the tour operators, TUI did well, Jet2 did well, it looks like it will come back this year. As a result with the OTAs the OTAs are no longer over charging people for flying with Ryanair.
Mr O’Leary was participating in an aviation panel that included Lynne Embleton CEO of Aer Lingus and Colm Lacy CCO of British Airways.
