FILE PHOTO: Two Boeing 737-8AS passenger aircrafts of Ryanair airline, taxi on a runway at Malaga-Costa del Sol airport, in Malaga, Spain, May 3, 2024. REUTERS/Jon Nazca/File Photo

By Kate Abnett

BRUSSELS (Reuters) -Boeing has brought forward deliveries to Ryanair, with 25 new MAX 8 aircraft expected by October instead of spring next year, enabling the budget carrier to offer more flights, its CEO Michael O'Leary said on Wednesday.

U.S. plane maker Boeing is working to stabilise production after a mid-air panel blowout on a new 737 MAX in January 2024 exposed widespread production quality and safety problems.

"The quality of what they're delivering is excellent so we're really impressed," O'Leary told Reuters in Brussels.

The end of the year Christmas travel season offers lucrative earning potential for carriers - maximizing capacity at that time can help meet higher travel demand.

"[The deliveries] give us a bit more capacity, and we feed that capacity by lowering airfares," O'Leary said. He did not specify which routes the planes would be allocated to.

Ireland's Ryanair is Europe's largest low-cost airline by fleet size, with more than 600 aircraft. O'Leary added that he expects Boeing's newer 737 MAX jets to be certified soon by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, allowing further deliveries.

He said Boeing had indicated that the MAX 7 should be certified by the end of 2025, while the MAX 10 could receive certification by early next year.

STRONG SUMMER

O'Leary said bookings remain strong and its financial guidance was unchanged from mid-August - when bookings were about 1% ahead of the same point last year - despite having to cancel around 700 flights in July due to strikes, mainly in France.

Ticket prices dropped 7% on average in Ryanair's July-September quarter last year, which hit profits. O'Leary confirmed fares are expected to recover this year - but this would depend on last-minute bookings for September.

"We expect to get most of last year's 7% decline, but not all," he told reporters in a press conference.

"We have sold about 70% of our September seats, but we have another 30% to sell, and it's those last fares, what people pay for all those last minute bookings through the remainder of September, that will ultimately determine what average airfares are."

While air traffic control strikes dropped in August - requiring the airline to cancel less than 50 flights in the month so far - the European Union needs to do more to allow planes to fly over countries such as France during strikes and guarantee staffing, he told Reuters.

France's second-largest air traffic controllers' union, UNSA-ICNA, held a two-day strike in early July to protest against staff shortages and ageing equipment.

"You can't allow the French to close the skies over Europe just because they want to go on strike," he said.

(Reporting by Kate Abnett, Writing by Joanna PlucinskaEditing by Louise Heavens and Elaine Hardcastle)