Ryanair Boeing 737-800 at Cork Airport
Taken by Lauren Jordan @irelandspotter on IG
Ryanair announced today that they are looking to replace all their Lauda Motion Airbus aircraft with Boeing 737-800s. Ryanair operates the Boeing 737-800 only but their subsidiary Lauda, has been using Airbus A320 aircraft.
According to Reuters, Michael O'Leary, he said that the airline group want to operate a single type aircraft fleet. Therefore, he stated that all Lauda's Airbus deliveries will be cancelled. However, some concerns are arising. With the grounding of the Boeing 737 MAX aircraft, Ryanair growth before this crisis has been tampered with due to the lack of aircraft deliveries. These were in hope to slowly replace the older Boeing 737 aircraft in the fleet. Will they await the arrival of the Boeing 737 MAX aircraft or will they resort to the Boeing 737-800 variants? Another worry is that if, let's say, they attained an entire fleet of Boeing 737 MAX aircraft, and that aircraft was grounded again. That would leave the airline with no aircraft left to operate their scheduled flights. The Airbus A220 was briefly grounded which meant that the majority of Swiss Air's fleet were temporarily unavailable. However, they had other aircraft to fall back on. This would not be the case for Ryanair.
There is many positives to resorting to a one aircraft fleet. For example, maintaining a single fleet type means that the airline can keep their costs low. Only one backlog of spare parts must be maintained and the staff only need to be rated on one aircraft type. They actually own a large inventory of spare parts in London Stansted which can be easily distributed across Europe. However, with another aircraft type in the field, they must also hold extra spare parts for their A320 aircraft. Along with these costs, the airline would have to pay for engineers and pilots that are qualified to work with the Airbus A320 fleet. This wouldn't be ideal for the airline during these extraordinary circumstances.
The airline has budgeted greatly during these past few months. They are even preparing to cut 15% of their 90,000 people workforce. Therefore, they are surviving this crisis. They are doing so well, supposedly, that they are going to resume 40% of all their flights from July. Michael O'Leary even condemned the UK's 14 day quarantine plan as 'nonsense' with no scientific basis behind it. On Tuesday, he stated at the FT's Global Boardroom event that: 'We can't be imposing these entirely arbitrary and non-scientific 14-day isolations, which are entirely unenforceable and unpoliceable anyway. This is a country that can't even do testing and tracing, never mind following up on people on where they are spending their 14-day isolation.' He also added how the plan just simply can't be scientific if the French and the Irish were exempt from the quarantine measures.
Ryanair shared their plans to resume flights from 80 of their bases across Europe on Tuesday starting off with flights as cheap as 5 euro. He will be increasing the amount of flights from 30 since lockdowns began in March to nearly 1,000 a day.
Multiple airlines such as Wizz Air and the IAG group have announced that they are willing to resume flights again soon. However, with this new plan imposed by the British government, this has crushed any hopes of the airlines resuming operations anytime soon. Initially, Ryanair was hoping to increase their operations to 80% by September. Although, they are expecting to only increase their capacity to 60-70%.
Ryanair also stated on Tuesday that it will be expected that passengers were facemarks or coverings at all times on the aircraft and in the terminal. Their cabin crew will also be wearing face masks or coverings. They also urge that one should reduce the amount of bags they bring and should check in online. Queueing for toilets will be prohibited on board and can only be accessed upon request.
The airline said that all passengers flying in July and August have to fill in details at check-in of the period of time they planned their visit and where they will be staying. This information will be given to the EU governments to help them monitor any isolation regulations that they require. Ryanair told FT Global Boardroom event that they are also planning to take more legal complaints to countries over state aid concerns. They have already filed against Swedish and French bailouts.
Ryanair have now put out their clear and concise plan on resuming operations in the safest possible way. It will be interesting to see how many airlines will follow in Ryanair's footsteps.
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