Ryanair changes the wings of its Boeing 737s (to save on fuel) – Corriere.it

Ryanair will change the wing tips of all its classic Boeing 737s to reduce fuel consumption and save energy bills of up to € 65 million per year. The decision of the largest low cost in Europe – and the second in the world after the American Southwest – appears in the folds of its financial document with the (record) data of the April-September 2022 semester officially as a commitment to cut emissions of carbon dioxide.

Costs

In the coming weeks, Ryanair will begin working on the winglets of the 409 Boeing 737-800s, replacing them with a scimitar-shaped end and another element facing down. The flap helps improve the aerodynamic efficiency of the wing and in this way the aircraft requires less kerosene. In the document, the low cost estimate that the restyling work will require an expense of over 200 million euros – almost half a million per aircraft – and save 1.5% on fuel consumption. The change will not affect Boeing 737 Max that already have a flap in this way.

The savings

According to insiders, with the new scimitar tips the more the plane flies the more the reduction rate of the kerosene needed increases. A Boeing 737-800 would have benefits ranging from 0.7% energy savings for a 500-mile flight to 2.2 for a three-thousand-mile (5,500-kilometer) flight. As far as Ryanair is concerned, this would be an estimated saving of 155-160 thousand euros per year, for a total – considering the 409 jets – which varies between 63 and 65 million euros. The low cost group – which also includes the Malta Air, Buzz and Lauda Europe divisions – has a total fleet of 517 aircraft, including classic Boeing 737s, 737 Maxs and Airbus A320s. A similar change was made between 2013 and 2014 by the American United Airlines.

Record revenue

On an economic level, Ryanair closed the first fiscal semester – the year for the company starts on April 1 and ends twelve months later – closed with 95.1 million passengers (more than 85.7 million in the same period of 2019, before Covid), a coverage rate of 94% (it was 96% three years earlier), 6.62 billion euros in revenues (compared to 5.39 billion in 2019) and 1.37 billion euros in profits (against 1, 15 billion in the first half of 2019) distributed as follows: 1.34 billion the Irish company, 4.9 million Malta Air, 22.4 million the other subsidiaries (Buzz and Lauda Europe).

Italy at the top

Among the numbers, Italy is confirmed as the first country for revenues: in the half-year April-September 2022, revenues from passengers amounted to 1.46 billion euros: of these almost 875 million during the three summer months. In second place Spain with 1.18 billion, then the United Kingdom (948 million). The recovery for the rest of the year remains fragile and could still be influenced by new variants of Covid or adverse geopolitical events such as the war in Ukraine, Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary is cautious. But net of sudden jolts, he expects a record second half. For us it was the best summer ever: Ryanair in Italy grew to have a market share of 40%, adds Mauro Bolla, country manager for our low cost country.