Ryanair has said it is continuing to work with planemaker Boeing to accelerate the delivery of new aircraft, but has confirmed its fleet expansion won’t be in time to meet its previous passenger growth targets for the next 12 months.
Ryanair is due to get 9 more Boeing 737 Gamechanger aircraft this summer, but is not expecting delivery of the remaining 29 planes in time to meet its passenger targets for its next financial year; the 12 months to the end of March 2026.
The airline had targeted 215 million passengers in that year, but revised that number downwards to 210 million in November and has now lowered it to 206 million people.
Ryanair group CEO Michael O’Leary said: “We’re hopeful that the remaining 29 Gamechangers in our 210 orderbook will deliver before March 2026, enabling us to recover this delayed traffic growth in Summer 2026 instead of Summer 2025. Boeing expects the MAX-10 to be certified in late 2025 which, we hope, will facilitate a timely delivery of our first 15 MAX-10s in Spring 2027, as contracted.”
Mr O’Leary remains upbeat about Ryanair’s long-term passenger growth outlook.
“We expect European short-haul capacity to remain constrained in 2025 as many of Europe’s Airbus operators continue to work through Pratt & Whitney engine repairs, both major OEMs [Original Equipment Manufacturers] struggle with delivery backlogs, and EU airline consolidation continues, including Lufthansa’s takeover of ITA, Air France-KLM’s stake in SAS and the upcoming sale of TAP.
“These capacity constraints, combined with our significant cost advantage, strong balance sheet, low-cost aircraft orders and industry leading operational resilience will, we believe, facilitate Ryanair’s low-fare profitable growth to 300 million passengers over the next decade.”
For its current financial year – up to the end of this March – Ryanair is expecting annual passenger volumes to rise 9% to almost 200 million people.
The airline’s newly-published third quarter financial results – covering the three month period to the end of December – show a better-than-expected after-tax profit of €149m, a 10% year-on-year jump in revenue to €2.96bn and a 9% rise in third quarter passenger numbers to 44.9 million people.
However, Ryanair’s rolling cumulative profits for the first 9 months of its current financial year fell 12% to €1.94bn on the back of an 8% decline in air fares.