The head of Ireland’s Ryanair Tuesday urged the US and EU to pull back from a tariff war over aircraft subsidies and said he would ask Boeing to “eat” any counter-tariffs imposed on the US firm by the EU. The WTO is expected to give the green light this week to US tariffs on billions of dollars of European goods, including Airbus jets, in a move likely to be mirrored by European tariffs on US planes and goods next year. “The US can’t afford to have a trade war,” said Ryanair Group CE Michael O’Leary, whose company’s main airline is one of Boeing’s largest customers. “Boeing is one of its biggest manufacturers and biggest exporters, but something needs to be resolved so I think like most airlines we sit there and hope common sense will prevail at the end of the day, but we don’t know how it plays out,” O’Leary said. The WTO is expected to publish in the coming days a report by an arbitration tribunal opening the door to US tariffs due to illegal European subsidies for Airbus. A similar WTO report backing EU tariffs in a parallel case over Boeing subsidies is expected early next year.<br/>
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Ryanair can wait out price rises sought by planemakers since the global grounding of the Boeing 737 MAX, the Irish airline’s boss said on Tuesday. Ryanair CE Michael O’Leary said his company can wait for prices to drop before placing any large orders. “I think we have to wait for the next turn in the cycle,” he said. “At the moment there are no pricing opportunities on aircraft. The MAX has been grounded, Airbus are pricing up, Boeing are pricing up because they’ve nothing to sell.” Industry sources say Ryanair has begun commercial talks with Boeing over an order for a larger MAX variant that could be finalised once the current version returns to service. The price of the potential 737 MAX 10 order is expected to include sharper discounts in lieu of cash compensation for the grounding of the older variants, the sources have said. Ryanair has said it is interested in 100 Airbus A321neo aircraft for its recently acquired Laudamotion business and the 737 MAX 10 for its all-Boeing main fleet “at the right price”. But O’Leary said the talks with Airbus were going slowly. While Laudamotion provided a platform to acquire Airbus planes into the Ryanair Group, the MAX grounding has not caused him to reconsider his policy of running just one aircraft type per airline, he said. Ryanair has 135 of a special 197-seat version of Boeing’s grounded 737 MAX 8 planes on order and options for a further 75. <br/>
Insolvent French low-cost, long-haul airline XL Airways is suspending all flights as a court deadline for finding an investor or liquidating the airline nears. “In great financial difficulties, XL Airways unfortunately finds itself obliged to suspend all its flights from Sept. 30, 2019 at [3:00 p.m. local] time until Thursday, Oct. 3 inclusive,” XL Airways said. The move three days after a French commercial court ruled that fellow French carrier Aigle Azur should be liquidated as no suitable rescue plan for the airline materialized. A French commercial court will decide in the coming days whether any of the expressions of interest in XL Airways, which had to be submitted to the court by Sept. 28, represents a viable option to save the airline. XL Airways CEO Laurent Magnin had previously called on Air France to rescue XL Airways, a course of action Air France-KLM quickly ruled out.<br/>