DUBLIN (Reuters) – Ryanair expects it will be short five to 10 planes for summer 2024 due to Boeing delivery delays, likely forcing the airline to scale back traffic growth, its chief executive said Michael O’Leary at the Financial Times on Tuesday.

Michael O’Leary said delivery delays would result in 200 million passengers being carried for the financial year starting in April, instead of the 205 million previously forecast.

The low-cost airline was supposed to receive 57 Boeing MAX 8200 aircraft before the end of April.

Ryanair has reduced its number of flights for the winter due to continued delays, lowering its traffic forecast to 183.5 million passengers from 185 million for the financial year until March 2024, representing growth 9% year-on-year.

“We were supposed to have 27 planes delivered before Christmas, we ended up having 11. We’re supposed to have 57 planes delivered before the end of April, and we think we’ll be lucky if we have 50 before the end of June,” Michael O’Leary said in an interview with the Financial Times.

“We will therefore be missing five, seven, even ten planes for the high summer season this year,” he added.

“It costs us, if we are talking about a loss of 5 million out of 205 million passengers (…) probably two, two and a half percent of the profits,” he added.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) grounded 171 MAX 9 planes on Saturday after the loss of a fuselage part aboard an Alaska Airlines aircraft, forced into an emergency landing shortly after takeoff on Friday.

If Ryanair operates and orders variants of the 737 MAX that are different from the grounded model, Michael O’Leary urged Boeing and rival Airbus to “significantly improve quality control” as manufacturers seek to make up for production delays.

The Irish airline – which is Europe’s largest by passenger numbers – uses Boeing 737s exclusively for its mainline fleet and is one of Boeing’s main customers.

(Reporting Padraic Halpin; Stéphanie Hamel, edited by Blandine Hénault)

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