The boss of the airline Ryanair, Michael O’Leary, expects ticket prices to rise again in the summer. He cited capacity bottlenecks as the reason because the delivery of new Boeing aircraft was delayed. Prices would be higher again in the summer of 2024 than in the summer of 2023, O’Leary said in Dublin, according to the British news agency PA.
Ryanair’s average prices rose by 17 percent in the summer of 2023 – but he is not assuming that. “In our budgets we are assuming an increase in flight prices of five to ten percent, which seems reasonable to me,” said O’Leary. It could also be more or less. “If capacity increased, I think prices would go down,” O’Leary was quoted as saying.
The Irish airline Ryanair announced in the fall that it would cancel a number of flights in its winter schedule because the delivery of new Boeing aircraft was delayed. Boeing is allowed to suspend production of the aircraft after a later incident in which a fuselage part was torn out mid-flight 737-Maxseries will no longer be expanded for the time being due to orders from the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Ryanair had expected 57 new aircraft from Boeing for the summer. O’Leary assumes that only 40 to 45 new machines could be delivered by the end of March. Passenger growth will therefore be lower than expected. In the aviation industry, several Airbus aircraft also require maintenance due to material defects.