Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on August 14, 2025
3 min readLast updated: January 22, 2026
Add as preferred source on GoogleRyanair sees strong summer bookings and stable fares, optimistic about targets. Boeing aids growth with early jet deliveries. Swedish expansion planned.
By Fatos Bytyci
TIRANA (Reuters) -Ryanair is seeing strong demand across Europe with bookings ahead of last year, and is "reasonably optimistic" about hitting its summer targets, Chief Executive Michael O'Leary said in an interview on Thursday.
He also praised Boeing for agreeing to deliver some jets earlier than scheduled, ending a run of delays that have curbed Ryanair's growth rate.
"We're seeing strong bookings through the peak summer months ... The fares are holding up," O'Leary said, adding that bookings were about 1% ahead of the same point last year.
He repeated a forecast from July that average fares were likely to recover almost all of a 7% decline seen in the July-September quarter last year, when Ryanair was hit by consumer caution and a dispute with some online travel agents.
Hitting the summer target will depend on close-in bookings for the remainder of the airline's key second quarter, which ends on September 30, he said.
There has been no sign of consumers changing their plans due to heatwaves this summer, O'Leary added. But he warned that U.S. tariffs would ultimately act as a drag on global growth.
"I think everybody is cautious at the moment, and we're right to be cautious," he said.
Boeing, which is due to deliver the final 29 aircraft of Ryanair's current order of 737 MAX jets this winter, has agreed to deliver seven jets in August and seven in September, ahead of an earlier-agreed schedule.
"Boeing are doing a terrific job," O'Leary said.
He was speaking in Tirana, where he announced a doubling of capacity to four million passengers per year with the basing of three aircraft at the airport from next April. He described Albania as a hidden jewel of the Adriatic.
SWEDISH GROWTH
Ryanair, Europe's largest airline by passengers, also announced plans to increase capacity serving Sweden by 25% for this winter, adding eight new routes, after the country scrapped its aviation tax at the beginning of last month.
That will add to pressure on local rivals such as SAS and Norwegian Air.
Ryanair Chief Marketing Officer Dara Brady called on Sweden also to freeze airport charges and potentially offer additional incentives for growth, saying this could allow Ryanair to double its Swedish traffic by 2030.
"The market is well capable of growing significantly here over the next number of years," Brady told a news conference.
(Additional reporting by Niklas Pollard in Stockholm. Writing by Conor Humphries. Editing by Tomasz Janowski and Mark Potter)
Consumer sentiment refers to the overall attitude of consumers towards the economy and their personal financial situation, often influencing their spending and saving behaviors.
Market condition describes the current state of the market, including factors like supply and demand, economic indicators, and consumer behavior, which can affect pricing and availability.
An airline's capacity refers to the maximum number of passengers or cargo that it can transport over a specific period, often influenced by the number of available aircraft and routes.
Fare recovery is the process of increasing ticket prices after a decline, aiming to restore average fares to previous levels, often following a period of reduced demand.
Expansion in the airline industry involves increasing the number of routes, flights, or capacity to meet growing demand, often leading to increased market share and revenue.
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