Ryanair wants €9bn deal for 200 planes

RYANAIR wants to reach an agreement to purchase 200 aircraft by the end of the year in a deal that could be worth close to €9 billion.

The airline said that if it does not finalise the aircraft purchase with either Boeing or Airbus over the coming months it will distribute cash to shareholders.

Should Ryanair come to an arrangement with the plane makers the aircraft would be delivered after 2012.

Chief executive Michael O’Leary said: “If for some reason we can’t conclude an agreement with Boeing and Airbus, certainly by the end of the year, we will simply announce we are not going to buy any more aircraft. We will then stop growing beyond 2012 when our current delivery stream runs out.”

Ryanair’s fleet currently consists of Boeing aircraft but Mr O’Leary said if Airbus offered a better deal he would order Airbus planes.

However, sales chief at Airbus, John Leahy, said a month ago that his company isn’t discussing a plane order with Mr O’Leary and Stefan Schaffrath, a spokesman for Airbus, said yesterday that the comment stands.

“If you can’t get Boeing or Airbus to make a decision between now and December I will lose interest and go with plan B,” said Mr O’Leary, who was speaking in London yesterday after the BBC current affairs TV programme Panorama broadcast a profile of the airline which said its website was misleading and that it imposed hidden charges.

“We have plenty of charges but none of them are hidden,” said Mr O’Leary, who reiterated that charging passengers to use the toilets remained a longer-term aim.

Ryanair, which does not pay annual dividends, won’t make an investor payout as long as it can arrange the purchases soon, said Mr O’Leary.

“We are building up a lot of cash at the moment,” he said. “If we bought the aircraft, then the cash flows would not be sufficient to fund a dividend.”

The carrier flies only single-aisle 737-800s built by Chicago-based Boeing and has more on order.

Mr O’Leary reiterated that he doesn’t plan to bid a third time for Aer Lingus, in which Ryanair holds a 30% stake.

Buying Deutsche Lufthansa’s BMI airline is “one of the many strategic options” the company would consider if Aer Lingus collapses, he said.

Ryanair shares were down 2.5% to €3.36 yesterday. The value of the airline has increased by almost €2bn to €4.9bn over the last year.