Ryanair to Order 175 Boeing 737-800s

Ryanair has signed an agreement with Boeing to purchase 175 new Next Generation 737-800 airplanes.

When finalised, the deal will be worth nearly $15.6 billion at current list prices, and will allow Ryanair to grow its airline to more than 400 airplanes, serving more than 100 million passengers per year across Europe by the end of the delivery stream in 2018.

Upon approval by Ryanair’s shareholders, the purchase will become Boeing’s largest deal to date in 2013.

Approximately 75 of these new aircraft will replace some of Ryanair’s existing fleet of 305 Boeing 737s, but the remainder will build Ryanair’s fleet of airplanes.

The new airplanes will allow Ryanair to grow by about 5% per annum over the next several years, taking Ryanair’s traffic to over 100 million passengers by March 2019.

Ryanair CEO, Michael O’Leary, said, “Ryanair is pleased to sign this agreement with Boeing to purchase 175 new 737-800 jets, which will expand our fleet to over 400 units, creating over 3,000 new jobs for pilots, cabin crew and engineers, while allowing us to grow our low-cost airline service by about 5% per annum over the next several years and take our traffic to 100 million passengers by March 2019.”