How the crisis at Boeing could make your next vacation more expensive

Boeing’s production problems are reverberating through an airline industry starved for planes, making it harder for carriers to meet red-hot demand for travel and raising the prospect of even higher ticket prices. On Wednesday, Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary explained why prices have further to climb. “If you have constrained supply (and) strong demand, I think it’s inevitable that you’re going to see air fares bump again this summer… between 5 and 10%,” he told CNN’s Richard Quest. Europe’s biggest airline by passengers had expected to receive 57 Boeing planes this summer, but now anticipates getting between 35 and 40, according to O’Leary. Ryanair is far from the only major carrier with too few aircraft. Southwest in the United States, which flies only Boeing 737 planes, announced last week that Boeing would deliver 40% fewer jets than it had been expecting this year. A critical shortage of planes is also plaguing other airlines — and the problem is not confined to Boeing. According to aviation analytics firm Cirium, about 600 Airbus jets globally have been grounded for at least the last month due to an issue with engines made by US aerospace manufacturer Pratt & Whitney. That’s hurting Lufthansa, the German group that also owns carriers in Austria and Switzerland. CEO Carsten Spohr said Wednesday that it has more than 30 Airbus A320Neos currently grounded. Ryanair CEO Michael O'Leary says issues with both Boeing and Airbus will constrain his airline's capacity this summer. “This industry … suffers from this lack of airplanes,” he added, noting that the shortage was affecting the company’s ability to grow. The grounding of some planes and delayed deliveries of new aircraft will mean that fares in the United States “should stay elevated through 2024, instead of tapering… as occurred last year after May,” according to Robert Mann, founder of R.W. Mann & Company, an airline industry consulting firm in the United States. Mann cited data from Airlines Reporting Corporation, which tracks ticket sales worldwide, showing that fares on US domestic flights booked in February for travel this year were 5%-6% higher than the same month last year, far outpacing overall inflation. The supply constraints helping to keep air fares higher may be around for some time yet. There’s a near-duopoly between Boeing and Airbus in commercial aircraft manufacturing, meaning airlines have almost no option but to wait in line.<br/>