With all the troubles the company has been going through in recent months, due to its Dreamliner, Boeing has some good news to share.
Though, it has nothing to do with the Dreamliner, it does have to do with profit numbers and production.
On Tuesday, Ryanair and Boeing announced that the airline has made the biggest-ever order of Boeing planes by a European airline, asking for 175 aircraft--a major boost for the U.S. aerospace giant, according to USA Today.
Neither side disclosed the financial figures for the 737-800s, but budget carrier Ryanair said it did negotiate a bulk discount off the total list price of $15.6 billion. Industry analysts said Ryanair almost certainly was paying less than half price, meaning a total bill below $8 billion, or $45 million per aircraft, reported USA Today.
Ryanair Chief Executive Michael O'Leary said that "about 75 of the new-order 737s would replace older airplanes, but the fleet would grow to 400 by 2019. He said Ryanair expected its passenger volume to grow around 20 percent to 100 million passengers by 2019, by which time its workforce would expand from 8,500 to around 11,500," reported USA Today.
Ryanair is already the biggest European customer for Boeing's 737-800 Next Generation aircraft, which launched in 1997 and faces global competition from the Airbus A320.
This announcement matches the order of 200 Airbus carriers by Indonesia's Lion Air, becoming the largest-deal ever struck for Boeing's counterpart.
USA Today reported that "The purchase contract for much of Ryanair's current Boeing fleet was agreed in the months following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, when airlines struggled to place new orders, and later Ryanair regulatory filings in Dublin confirmed that it received a 53 percent discount off Boeing's list prices. In 2009, O'Leary noisily withdrew from talks to purchase more 737s and hinted that Ryanair might turn to Airbus."
The head of Boeing's commercial airplanes division, Ray Conner said, "[the company's] partnership with this great European low-cost carrier is of the utmost importance to everyone at The Boeing Company, and I could not be more proud to see it extended for years to come," according to USA Today.
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