- Ryanair anticipates attracting 206m customers in the 2026 financial year
- Boeing suffered a production slowdown last year following a seven-week strike
Irish air carrier Ryanair has reduced its passenger forecast due to delays in Boeing delivering new aircraft.
Europe’s largest low-cost airline anticipates attracting 206million customers in the 2026 financial year, equivalent to 3 per cent annual growth.
It warned it no longer believes Boeing will provide ‘sufficient aircraft’ ahead of the coming summer season to help boost passenger volumes to its previous target of 210million.
Boeing, whose biggest European customer is Ryanair, suffered a major production slowdown last year following a seven-week strike by machinists in Washington State over pay and retirement plans.
The industrial action compounded problems for an airplane manufacturer already facing huge controversy over its safety record.
All its 737 Max 9 aircraft were grounded for about three weeks early last year after an Alaska Airlines flight in January was forced to make an emergency landing due to a doorplug blowout.
Outlook: Irish air carrier Ryanair has reduced its passenger forecast again due to delays in Boeing delivering new aircraft
Ryanair said it was ‘hopeful’ of receiving the remaining 29 aircraft of its 210 MAX order before March 2026, and the MAX-10 to be certified later this year in time for the first 15 MAX-10 deliveries in Spring 2027.
As a result, the Dublin-based company plans to allocate ‘scarce capacity growth’ to airports and countries reducing or abolishing their aviation taxes to incentivise traffic expansion, such as Poland, Sweden and Italy.
This will not include the UK, where Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced hikes to air passenger duty in last October’s Budget.
Ryanair’s outspoken chief executive, Michael O’Leary, warned the airline would cut flights to and from UK airports by 10 per cent following the announcement, which he described as ‘idiotic.’
O’Leary also warned on Monday that it anticipates European short-haul capacity to ‘remain constrained’ this year.
He partly blamed this on engine repairs grounding Airbus aircraft and consolidation in the airline sector, such as Lufthansa’s takeover of Italian state-owned airline ITA, and the sale of Portuguese flag carrier TAP.
For the year ending March, the firm forecasts passenger numbers increasing by 9 per cent to nearly 200million, dependent on ‘no further adverse news’ regarding delayed Boeing aircraft deliveries.
Given this, and the risk of conflicts across Ukraine and the Middle East, and staff shortfalls at European air traffic control centres, Ryanair is ‘cautiously guiding’ for annual profits of between €1.55billion and €1.61billion.
In the nine months to December, the group reported profits declined by 12 per cent to €1.94billion despite third-quarter profits shooting up almost tenfold to €149million.
Traffic over the final three months of the period rose by 9 per cent to 44.9million thanks to a bump in last-minute Christmas and New Year bookings, which bolstered turnover by 10 per cent to €2.96billion.
‘Although appetite for low-cost holidays shows little sign of abating, Ryanair’s wings have been clipped, and it can’t fly significantly higher on the upstream of demand,’ said Susannah Streeter, head of money and markets at Hargreaves Lansdown.
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