Ryanair in $4bn Boeing plane deal

Budget airline Ryanair has placed an order for 70 Boeing 737-800 planes, in a deal valued at $4bn (£2.1bn) which should lead to 2,500 new Ryanair jobs.

It also has an option for a further 70 aircraft, a move which brings the Ryanair/Boeing order book up to 225 firm orders and options on 193 more. Ryanair said the new planes would help it to cut operating costs further. The carrier reported a drop in quarterly profit earlier this year after it was hit by higher fuel costs. However, when it reported the results, the airline was upbeat about prospects for 2005, despite tough competition in the budget airline market.

Ryanair chairman David Bonderman said that the 737-800 had "significantly reduced our unit operating costs and allowed us to reduce air fares each year for the last five years".

"With this new order and new pricing in place, Ryanair expects that unit operating costs (excluding fuel) will continue to fall each year for the next five years," he added. At the end of this year, Ryanair will have taken delivery of about 100 new planes, while the 70 new orders are due for delivery between 2008 and 2012. The airline said that when all these planes have been delivered, it will be able to carry more than 70 million passengers a year, making it Europe's largest airline. About 2,500 new jobs should be created in the next seven years, it added. The order can be seen as good news for Boeing, which in recent years has been overtaken by European plane maker Airbus as the world's biggest-selling plane maker.