Yesterday (Thursday 28 September) announced a number of reductions to the 2023 winter schedule as a direct result of delays in the delivery of Boeing aircraft between September and December. Ryanair had expected to receive 27 aircraft between September and December, but due to production delays at the Spirit Fuselage plant in Wichita, combined with Boeing repairs and delivery delays in Seattle, Ryanair now expects to receive only 14 aircraft between October and December. Ryanair is working with Boeing to try to accelerate deliveries between January and May 2024, allowing it to enter the 2024 summer season with the expected 57 new Boeing aircraft.

Due to these delivery delays, Ryanair will make a number of adjustments to its winter 2023 schedule this week. We are reducing the number of aircraft based at Charleroi by 3, at Dublin by 2, and will reduce 5 aircraft at 4 Italian bases, including Bergamo, Naples and Pisa. There will also be aircraft reductions at East Midlands, Porto and Cologne.

Ryanair apologises for these unavoidable reductions to the 2023 winter schedule. Ryanair has no spare aircraft this winter as scheduled maintenance work is required across our entire fleet of over 550 aircraft to ensure they are all operational for our biggest ever summer schedule in 2024.

Michael O'Leary, CEO of Ryanair, said:

”We are working closely with Boeing and their supplier, Spirit, to minimise these delivery delays. It is deeply regrettable that production issues in Wichita and Seattle have once again delayed Boeing’s contracted deliveries to Ryanair this winter. We are in regular discussions with Boeing, and our primary objective is to ensure that we receive delivery of all 57 contracted B737 aircraft by the end of May 2024, allowing Ryanair’s fleet to grow to over 600 aircraft for what will be our largest ever summer flight programme. These flight arrangements will come into effect from the end of October and will be communicated to all affected passengers via email in the coming days. Passengers will be offered rebooking to alternative flights or a full refund if they so wish. We sincerely apologise to passengers for any inconvenience these delivery delays cause this winter.

At this early stage, we do not expect these delivery delays to significantly impact our full-year traffic target of 183.5 million, but if the delays worsen or extend further into the period January to March 2024, we may need to reassess this target and possibly adjust it slightly downwards.”