DUBLIN, April 19 (Reuters) – Ryanair will have to trim its July schedule because it expects around 10 Boeing 737 MAX aircraft will be delayed due to manufacturing issues, Group Chief Executive Michael O’Leary said on Wednesday.
“We are beginning to look at schedules maybe being about 10 short for July. We’ll get maybe 12 by the end of June and then we hope 12 by the end of July,” O’Leary told Reuters on the sidelines of a conference in Dublin. The airline had been due to receive 22 of the planes in June and two in July, he said.
“We will certainly have to trim some flights out of the system. I don’t think there will be route cancellations.”
The Irish airline in a statement on Friday said it was assessing with Boeing how delays, related to certain components made by one of the U.S. firm’s main suppliers, would impact its schedule.
The focus of any cuts, O’Leary said, would be on high-frequency routes such as those between Britain and Ireland.
Boeing has promised an updated delivery schedule by Friday, he said.
“So really we don’t know where we are at the moment, which is very regrettable. This is the third unauthorised mod [modification] that we’ve suffered that have delayed deliveries so it’s very disappointing,” he said.
He also added that Ryanair’s business is “booming and getting boomier” with no sign of European consumers tightening their belts when it comes to travel,.
“I am surprised at the strength of spending in the European economy at the moment,” O’Leary told a Bloomberg conference near Dublin.
“There is full employment, people are getting paid every month and they are spending – they are certainly spending on travel,” said O’Leary, whose airline is Europe’s largest by passenger numbers.
