Ryanair’s O’Leary Outlines In-House Engine Overhaul Project

VIENNA—Ryanair Group CEO Michael O’Leary is offering a general outline for the Ireland-based ULCC’s next big MRO project.

“As our fleet grows to 800 aircraft in the next decade, we are talking about 2,000 engines. We almost always have 200 engines on repair at any one time,” O’Leary told Aviation Week in Vienna Feb. 5.

Therefore, the next big MRO development for Ryanair in the next five to 10 years is going to be taking engine maintenance in-house, he said.

“We do almost all our own airframe maintenance. I think with supply chain challenges and only two providers, Pratt & Whitney and General Electric, we need to start repairing our own engines,” O’Leary said. “I think you will see us announce one or two engine shops probably in the next 12 months and it [will take] us three or four years to build and open those engine shops.”

O’Leary said building the engine overhaul shops would not be too complicated but would be very expensive. “And it takes time to build up the necessary experience,” he said. “We think each engine shop will cost about $250 to $300 million. So, we talk about investments of $500 to $600 million. Probably one engine shop will be located in Eastern Europe and one in Western Europe.”

“As we almost always have 200 engines on repair at any one time, it makes sense from a financial point of view and also makes sense from a quality point of view,” O´Leary added.

Ryanair has 27 to 30 big MRO centers for its own aircraft maintenance, the CEO said. “We just finished building a six-bay hangar in Seville, Spain. We will start work on a four-bay hanger in Dublin. We are expanding hangar facilities in Kaunas [Lithuania], Krakow and Wrocław [Poland],” O’Leary said.

The Ryanair airline group’s fleet comprises 620 aircraft, O’Leary said. The fleet includes more than 400 Boeing 737 Next Generation models powered by CFM56-7Bs and 172 Leap 1B-powered 737-8-200s.

Ryanair also operates 27 leased Airbus A320ceos for its unit Lauda.