An aircraft delivered to Ryanair by Boeing in the past was left with “a spanner under the floorboards”, and items left in the hold, Michael O’Leary has claimed in the wake of the AS1812 blowout. But he says he has every confidence in Boeing navigating their way out of their current difficulties.
“Boeing make great aircraft. The 737 is the most audited aircraft in history, it’s the oldest and most secure plane in the air, we’re very proud to fly them and we’ve had no kickback or pushback from passengers flying on our aircraft. We don’t fly the MAX 9 so the issue doesn’t apply, there’s none of those aircraft in Europe.”
“Ryanair sent a team to Seattle last week, we’ve met with the senior management, they’ve asked us to put more engineers on the ground in Seattle, which we’ve agreed to do.
“Boeing have also committed to putting more engineers that are sitting on top of quality control and quality assurance as the aircraft come off the product or the production facility.
“I have a lot of confidence and time for the work that Dave Calhoun and Brian West, the chief finance officer, have done over the last two years. I think they’ve made very significant improvements.”
Ryanair has orders for a further 57 aircraft to be delivered this year but to date has run into supply delays from Boeing, which may be exacerbated by the grounding of the 737 Max 9.
“We think we’d be lucky to get 50 by the end of June, which is just in time for the peak summer this year. So there’s no doubt we’re going to be short some aircraft. Our plan was to grow this year to 205m passengers, it’s more likely to be 200, 201, 202,m. So we have to grow a little bit slower. But maybe that’s a good thing in the overall context of the work that Boeing has to do on its assembly line in Seattle.”
Mr O’Leary said Ryanair will double the number of engineers it has on the ground at production facilities in Wichita, from four to eight, and Seattle, from six to 12, following a request from Boeing, as well as increasing those inspecting their own planes. Boeing has also doubled the number of its own engineers on production.
Mr O’Leary said he was encouraged that its most recent deliveries from Boeing had been “the best aircraft we’ve ever had from them”, adding that he expects the grounding of the MAX 9s to be lifted as soon as next week as the US-wide inspection process is completed.
“It is not acceptable that aircraft come out of Wichita, or aircraft get delivered from Seattle with anything wrong with those aircraft, and they need to be checking that all the bolts are secure, that all the fasteners are in the right place and the holes are in the right place.”
