USELESS GREEN MINISTER RYAN SHOULD “GROW…OR GO”

Ryanair today (Fri 8^th Mar), called on Ireland’s Transport Minister, Eamon Ryan, to “Grow or Go” as Spanish airport operator AENA yesterday unveiled plans to accelerate its traffic growth by 10% from 283m passengers in 2023 to 310m passengers by 2026. Over that same 4 years, Dublin Airport will stagnate under its 32m passenger cap, while Irish Transport Minister Eamon Ryan refuses to act.

TRAFFIC GROWTH	DUB APT	SPAIN’S APTS
2023	32m	283m
2024	32m	294m
2025	32m	300m
2026	32m	310m
GROWTH	0%	+10%

Minister Ryan’s National Aviation Policy commits him to grow routes, connectivity, tourism and jobs at Irish airports but all he has delivered after 4 years is a traffic cap at Dublin, which is sending Ireland’s aviation growth to Italy and Poland.

Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary said:

“While Spain’s traffic, tourism, and jobs grow thanks to Ryanair’s investment in new aircraft and new routes, Dublin Airport stagnates under a 15 year old, outdated, traffic cap, and the idle failure of Transport Minister Eamon Ryan to take any action to deliver his own aviation growth strategy. Green Minister Eamon Ryan won’t intervene, won’t grow, and his inaction means 4 years of stagnation in Irish aviation & tourism while Spain and other EU airports continues to grow, thanks to Ryanair’s investment. The message is clear for Irish aviation and Irish tourism, which has become the laughing stock of Europe; Minister Eamon Ryan should either Grow…. or Go.”

Following Ryanair’s purchase of 500 tonnes of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) from OMV in October last, the airline has today (8^th Mar) announced that it will take an additional 500 tonnes of SAF from OMV in 2024. This agreement will save a further 1,250+ tonnes in CO₂ emissions (equivalent to c.100 Ryanair flights from Dublin to Vienna). 

Under Ryanair and OMV’s MOU agreement, Ryanair has unique access to purchase up to 160,000 metric tonnes of SAF from OMV up to 2030.

Ryanair’s Director of Sustainability, Tom Fowler, said:

“We’re delighted to be taking an additional 500 tonnes of SAF from OMV this year, in addition to the 500 tonnes we agreed in October last. SAF plays a key role in our Pathway to Net Zero decarbonisation strategy in which we have committed to increasing our use of over the coming years – a commitment that this deal with OMV will help move further forward. OMV is a key partner for Ryanair in Austria, Germany and Romania and we look forward to growing this partnership as Europe’s largest airline group.”

Ryanair, Ireland’s favourite airline, today (Wed 6^th Mar) called on Green Transport Minister, Eamon Ryan, to explain why he won’t intervene in the planning process to scrap the 32m Dublin Airport cap when he had no problem intervening in the planning for the Shannon LNG facility in 2022 (see copy attached). Ryanair looks forward to its first meeting with Minister Ryan tomorrow (Thurs 7^th Mar) at its Airside offices. Ryanair will be asking Minister Ryan to explain why he won’t intervene in the Dublin traffic cap planning process, why he is failing to deliver his National Aviation Policy which is to grow traffic, tourism, and jobs, and why he is squandering Ireland’s ETS revenues on school buses (a Dept of Education budget) rather than investing in greening Irish aviation.

Transport Minister Eamon Ryan must take urgent action to scrap the Dublin Airport traffic cap, especially when Dublin has recently opened a 2^nd runway taking capacity to 60m but aviation and jobs growth is being blocked by an artificial 32m traffic cap.  

Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary said:

“We look forward to our first meeting with Transport Minister Ryan tomorrow. We look forward to explaining Ryanair’s plan to grow Irish traffic by 50% over the next 6 years to 2030; our plan to reach net zero by 2050; and asking Minister Ryan when he plans to take action to scrap Dublin’s absurd traffic cap by intervening as he did in the Shannon LNG planning process in 2022; and when he will start using Irish passenger ETS revenues of over €200m p.a. to incentivise Ireland’s supply of SAF’s rather than subsidising the Dept of Education school bus budget.

We look forward to hearing Minister Ryan’s plans to deliver growth under his National Aviation Policy, when sadly for 4 years he doesn’t appear to have any growth plans.”

INDUSTRY-LEADING ROUTE NETWORK, FREQUENCIES, AND FARES FOR CORPORATE TRAVEL

Ryanair, Europe’s No. 1 airline, today (6^th Mar) announced a new partnership agreement with corporate travel distributor, Kyte, which will enable Kyte’s network of corporate travel partners to access Ryanair’s industry leading low fares and network of over 3,600 daily flights (including key city connections) across 235+ destinations with regular morning and evening services ensuring efficient low-cost travel for businesses. 

This partnership will provide Ryanair with streamlined access to the travel ecosystem, including a vast array of corporate travel partners, without the need for legacy GDSs, while Kyte’s network of corporate travel partners benefit from Kyte’s advanced new technology solution, which effectively supports Ryanair’s content and functionality within their own web, mobile, and alternative portals for a seamless corporate customer experience.

Ryanair’s Dara Brady said:

“We are pleased to announce our exciting new partnership with Kyte, which will enable Kyte’s corporate travel partners to access Ryanair’s industry leading network of 3,600 daily flights across 235+ destinations, our regular schedules which cater perfectly for business travel, unrivalled on-time performance, and our budget-friendly low fares all through Kyte’s state-of-the art distribution technology.

We look forward to working further with Kyte over the coming years as Ryanair continues to grow to carry 300m passengers p.a. by 2034.”

Alice Ferrari, CEO & Co-founder KYTE added:

“As the airline industry transitions to API distribution this announcement demonstrates Ryanair’s progressive mindset around supporting new technologies. I’m extremely proud that Ryanair has chosen Kyte as their first official non-GDS distribution partner.

We are excited to be working with Ryanair in delivering easy access to the airline’s convenient low-cost travel to our corporate travel partners thanks to Kyte’s modern and standardised interface. Ryanair’s content via the Kyte channel will also be made available on our partner desktop solutions such as AirGateway.

This partnership demonstrates our commitment to helping airlines like Ryanair broaden their reach and open new and relevant revenue streams, on their terms.”

NOW EXPECT ONLY 40 OF 57 B737 DELIVERIES FOR PEAK S24

Ryanair, Europe’s No.1 airline, today (Fri 1 Mar) confirmed that Boeing now expect to deliver just 40 of the 57 planned B737-MAX8200 aircraft that were due to be delivered to Ryanair before the end of June 2024. Ryanair’s current S24 schedule was based on receiving a minimum of 50 B737 aircraft, and Ryanair will now have to reduce approx. 10 aircraft lines of flying for the peak summer months of Jul, Aug and Sept. This will cause some minor schedule changes in the context of Ryanair’s 600 aircraft fleet and will reduce frequencies on existing routes rather than cutting new routes.

Ryanair has already implemented these schedule cuts at some of its higher cost airports, most notably Dublin, Milan Malpensa, Warsaw Modlin and 4 Portuguese airports where costs are rising faster than inflation in 2024. All affected passengers have already received schedule change notifications offering them alternative flight times or full refunds if they prefer.  

Ryanair regrets these further 10 Boeing delivery delays and expects that these further S24 schedule changes will reduce FY March 2025 traffic to just under 200m passengers compared to an original target of 205m. Ryanair will now work with Boeing to accept aircraft deliveries during the peak months of Jul, Aug and Sept 2024, but given these delivery uncertainties, it will be unable to put these aircraft on sale for peak S24.

Ryanair’s Group CEO Michael O’Leary said:  

“We are very disappointed at these latest Boeing delivery delays, but we continue to work with Boeing to maximise the number of new B737 aircraft we receive by the end of June, which we can confidently release for sale to customers during the S24 peak. We will now work with Boeing to take delayed aircraft deliveries during Aug and Sept 2024 to help Boeing reduce their delivery backlog.

We regret any inconvenience caused to some customers and our airport partners by these enforced S24 schedule changes, which will reduce our full year traffic growth from 184m in FY24 to between 198m to 200m in FY25. We are working with our airport partners to deliver some growth to them, albeit later in Sept and Oct (rather than Jul and Aug). This traffic growth can only be delivered at lower fares during these shoulder months.

Boeing continues to have Ryanair’s wholehearted support as they work through these temporary challenges, and we are confident that their senior management team, led by Dave Calhoun (CEO) and Brian West (CFO), will resolve these production delays and quality control issues in both Wichita and Seattle.

We expect these latest Boeing delivery delays, which regrettably are beyond Ryanair’s control, combined with the grounding of up to 20% of our Airbus competitors’ A320 fleets in Europe, will lead to more constrained capacity and slightly higher air fares for consumers in Europe in Summer 2024. We therefore urge all Ryanair customers to book early in order to secure the lowest available air fares for Summer 2024.”

4 NEW ROUTES & 12 BASED AIRCRAFT

Ryanair, Porto’s No.1 airline, today (29 Feb) announced its biggest-ever S24 schedule for Porto with 76 total routes, including 4 new. This record schedule will see Ryanair base 12 aircraft in Porto for Summer ’24 an investment of $1.2 billion, supporting over 360 high-paid jobs for pilots and cabin crew.

Ryanair’s PortoS24 schedule will deliver:

• 12 based a/c
• $1.2bn invest
• 4 new routes (Belfast, Ibiza, Pisa & Tangier)
• 76 total routes
• Traffic grows 5% to 3.8m pax in S24
• Supporting over 2,800 jobs, incl. over 360 pilot, cabin crew & engineer jobs in Ryanair

Ryanair is committed to future growth and investment in Porto. As a result, it is adding 5 new routes (76 in total) in the biggest-ever summer schedule, alongside 12 aircraft and $1.2 billion investment which supports over 2,800 aviation jobs. To celebrate its record Summer’24 schedule for Porto, Ryanair has launched a 3-day seat sale with fares from just €21.99 available from today for booking only at ryanair.com.

4 New S24 Routes

Belfast

Ibiza

Pisa

Tangier

Ryanair’s Country Manager for Portugal, Elena Cabrera, said

“As Porto’s no.1 airline, Ryanair is pleased to announce its biggest ever S24 schedule for Porto, with 4 new routes to Belfast, Ibiza, Pisa & Tangier offering Porto’s citizens/visitors even more choice for weekend city breaks and summer holidays at the lowest fares in Europe. Our $1.2bn investment in Porto and our 5% traffic growth highlights Ryanair’s commitment to Porto’s tourism growth and connectivity.”

To celebrate the launch of our record Summer’24 schedule for Porto, Ryanair is launching a 3-day seat sale with fares from just €21.99 available from today, only on www.Ryanair.com. We look forward to welcoming millions of Portuguese citizens/visitors onboard Ryanair’s low fare flights to/from Porto in 2024.”