Thomas Fowler: Yes.
Michael O’Leary: Okay. And the second question, Duane?
Duane Pfennigwerth: Yes. Just with respect to a tighter OEM market and these lingering constraints, where would you estimate the value of your unencumbered fleet today? Thanks for taking the questions.
Michael O’Leary: That’s a big question above my pay grade. I mean the value of our existing unencumbered is dramatically higher than anything in the big gift in us and some of our competitors in Europe. Remember, we add all of our aircraft at the net purchase price to the balance sheet. And so you get the benefit in lower depreciation – significantly lower depreciation charges over the next 20 years. I heard one of our competitors last week can talk in themselves trying to explain how they’re doing sale and leasebacks, recognizing a profit upfront, but it doesn’t make a lot of difference over time between us and Ryanair. When the actuated the aircraft ownership costs for that airline are more than double that of Ryanair on a per passenger basis, like just complete note [indiscernible].
The fact is – and I would say also, by the way, the – our delivery book of aircraft, which we priced. I mean the last of the, we still have more than 60 or just over 60 Gamechanger to take delivery of over the next 2 years, we could – they are worth, I would say, probably not far off double what we have been paying for them over the next 2 years and even the MAX 10 Gamechanger, I would say the market is still constrained. I read a story this morning that Airbus are out trying to buyback some of the delivery slots from some of their A320s from the lessors and some of their customers offensively to provide aircraft to United in the States. So, I hope they are very successful, and I hope therefore as a result, you and I could walk away from a load of MAX 10 because we will be the first ones out there looking for additional MAX 10 for delivery in ‘26 to ‘27, if we could get them.
But I think it’s the reality for all airlines is that we are all short of aircraft. The OEMs cannot – I mean the more significant thing why we welcome the MAX 9s going back into the air last week, just so that you just take that as the issue of I thought that the most significant intervention by the FAA was Boeing not to increase monthly production. That does represent a challenge for Boeing. It will leave some dissatisfied customers going forward for deliveries in 2020 – remainder ‘24, ‘25 and ‘26. We will still get in, get out 40 aircraft next winter. But I think it is inevitable given the quality challenges facing both Boeing and Airbus, that some of this capacity ramp-up needs to be slowed down. And we still haven’t even taken account of some of the orders that are still out there from the Chinese airlines, the Middle Eastern airlines, some Indian airlines for additional aircraft.
Therefore, I think the world is going to be challenged for certainly short-haul aircraft for the next 5 years, 7 years out to 2030. Ryanair is one of the few airlines that has a secured a pipeline of reasonably low-cost new aircraft deliveries over that period of time. And these are new aircraft deliveries that will transform our operating costs because they offer significantly more seats, but at a significantly reduced fuel consumption. So, I don’t think I have ever been more excited about our growth and the possible profitability of our growth in Europe in the next 3 years to 5 years where our capacity is going to be meaningfully constrained. And I think if you look at the pricing of air travel across North America compared to where it is in Europe at the moment, it’s clear that the pricing in Europe has some considerable way to go to catch up in North America.
Will it get all the way to North America, I don’t know. Nobody really knows, but certainly, if you were at the lower end of the pricing model, as Ryanair is, I think there is – we have more headroom for price increases over the coming years to cover higher costs, although we will be using our low-cost aircraft and improve fuel consumption to keep airfares down. And I think one of the big difference between us and some of the – our competitor reported last week is we saw average airfares rise double digit in our Q3, whereas their average fare performance was significantly behind that of ours. And that’s, I think in large measure because we are expanding into a lot of their markets. And we are expanding profitably where they are unable to compete with us and reporting losses.
Duane Pfennigwerth: Thanks Michael.
Michael O’Leary: Thanks Duane. Next question, please.
Operator: Thank you. The next question comes from Ruairi Cullinane from RBC. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.
Michael O’Leary: Ruairi, hi.
Ruairi Cullinane: Good morning. Yes, the first question, Boeing delivery delays. I saw the previous expectation would be that you would be down around 10 aircraft this summer and it now sounds more likely to be down 7. So, I was wondering what potentially drove this slight improvement. And then secondly, on the modest growth in ancillary revenues per passenger, you previously explained that ancillary revenue should be more stable than fares. But is this driven by you sort of holding back on pricing, or are you seeing some take-up of ancillary products declining in the current environment? Thank you.
