Ryanair has said it will bring forward a new long-term strategy for the airline after negotiations with Boeing for an order of up to 200 new planes broke down.
The airline said negotiations for the planes, which were to be delivered from 2013 to 2016, could not be concluded successfully and had been 'terminated'. Ryanair said there were no plans to re-open talks with Boeing or any other plane maker.
The breakdown will not affect its plans to take delivery of 112 planes during the next three years.
But Ryanair said it would now bring forward plans to 'significantly' reduce its growth and capital spending from 2012 to 2015, in order to maximise the cash available to distribute to shareholders.
Ryanair chief executive Michael O'Leary said it was right to return surplus cash to shareholders if the airline could not use it to buy planes on the right terms.
He said agreement with Boeing was reached on prices, but he said the US plane maker was unwilling to include some other terms and conditions from an existing agreement into the proposed new deal.
In a statement, Michael O’Leary said: ‘We regret that our prolonged negotiations with Boeing have failed to reach a mutually acceptable conclusion.
‘While we reached agreement with Boeing on pricing for 200 aircraft deliveries during the 2013-16 period, Boeing were unwilling to incorporate some other terms and conditions from our existing agreement into this new aircraft order.
‘Ryanair has made clear to Boeing that we will not order aircraft if we believe that either the pricing or the other contractual terms and conditions will be inferior to those which we currently enjoy, as this would not be a wise or sensible use of shareholders funds.’
