European budget airline Ryanair says its looking at flight cuts, slower growth and job losses if deliveries of Boeing 737 Max jets keep being delayed.
European budget airline Ryanair says it’s looking at flight cuts, slower growth and job losses if deliveries of Boeing 737 Max jets keep being delayed.
CEO Michael O’Leary says on an earnings conference call Monday that the airline was supposed to get 58 Maxes by next summer. He used an expletive to say that could drop to zero if Boeing can’t get its act together and win regulators’ approval to put the planes back in the air.
The Max has been grounded since March and deliveries suspended after crashes that killed 346 people in Indonesia and Ethiopia. Boeing is working to fix flight-control software.
O’Leary says Ryanair now expects 30 new Maxes by next summer. But that would cut its passenger growth rate from 7% to 3% in fiscal 2021.
