Ryanair to double in size by 2021
24.10.11
In an interview with the Financial Times, Michael O'Leary, chief executive of Ryanair, has outlined plans to nearly double the size of the airline's fleet by 2021. He said that Ryanair is looking to buy between 200 and 300 new planes to add to its current fleet of 300, and to expand passenger numbers from the current 70 million a year up to 130 million over the next decade.
Mr O'Leary told the FT that he is looking to buy planes cheaply, and is in talks with US maker Boeing, and also with China's Comac and and Russia's Irkut. He has previously tried to talk to Airbus, but they consider Ryanair a 'Boeing customer' (its fleet is currently made up entirely of Boeing 737-800s). He may well be using the Chinese and Russian planes as potential competition to try to get a better deal from Boeing too, although Boeing refused to meet Ryanair's price target last year, with the airline walking away from negotiations and paying shareholders a special dividend of £500m with money it had planed to use to buy planes.
Future route expansion is likely to be headed Northwards and Eastwards into Scandinavia and Eastern Europe. This comes after the airline's recent expansion into Southern Europe, particularly Italy and Spain.
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