Ryanair can bide its time for better plane deals, says O'Leary

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/>