Ryanair boss declares passengers are safe despite Boeing issues
Ryanair’s chief executive has insisted passengers are safe in its fleet of Boeing aircraft after he raised questions about quality control at the plane manufacturer.
Speaking to Sky News following the Alaska Airlines accident that saw a fuselage panel blow out of a 737 MAX 9, Michael O’Leary said he was sending a team of engineers to oversee production of 57 aircraft he has on order, and his customers should be reassured.
“We don’t fly the MAX 9 so the issue doesn’t apply, there’s none of those aircraft in Europe.
“Boeing make great aircraft. The 737 is the most audited aircraft in history, it’s the oldest and most secure plane in the air, we’re very proud to fly them and we’ve had no kickback or pushback from passengers flying on our aircraft.”
Mr O’Leary said Ryanair will double the number of engineers it has on the ground at production facilities in Wichita, from four to eight, and Seattle, from six to 12, following a request from Boeing, as well as increasing those inspecting their own planes.
A Ryanair team met senior Boeing management including under-pressure chief executive Dave Calhoun in Seattle last week, and told them they had concerns over quality control.
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How Bob found plane door in back yard
Mr O’Leary said he retained full “faith and confidence” in Mr Calhoun but wanted to see improvement in quality control that in the past had seen planes delivered to Ryanair with “a spanner under the floorboards”, and items left in the hold.
He said Boeing had doubled the number of its own engineers on production lines after concerns raised by the failure of a door “plug”, that blew out at 16,000 feet apparently because four bolts had not been secured.
“I have a lot of confidence and time for the work that Dave Calhoun and Brian West, the chief finance officer, have done over the last two years. I think they’ve made very significant improvements,” he said.
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Boeing and Spirit at centre of blowout scare
“But there’s more to do. Ryanair sent a team to Seattle last week, we’ve met with the senior management, they’ve asked us to put more engineers on the ground in Seattle, which we’ve agreed to do.
“And they’ve also committed to putting more engineers that are sitting on top of quality control and quality assurance as the aircraft come off the product or the production facility.
“It is not acceptable that aircraft come out of Wichita, or aircraft get delivered from Seattle with anything wrong with those aircraft, and they need to be checking that all the bolts are secure, that all the fasteners are in the right place and the holes are in the right place.”
Mr O’Leary said he was encouraged that its most recent deliveries from Boeing had been “the best aircraft we’ve ever had from them”, adding that he expects the grounding of the MAX 9s to be lifted as soon as next week as the US-wide inspection process is completed.
Ryanair has orders for a further 57 planes to be delivered this year but to date has received only seven from Boeing, and Mr O’Leary said a likely shortfall will hit its target of flying 205 million passengers this year.
“We think we’d be lucky to get 50 by the end of June, which is just in time for the peak summer this year. So there’s no doubt we’re going to be short some aircraft.
“Our plan was to grow this year to 205 million passengers, it’s more likely to be 200, 201, 202, million. So we have to grow a little bit slower. But maybe that’s a good thing in the overall context of the work that Boeing has to do on its assembly line in Seattle.”
Mr O’Leary also rejected the British government’s plan, announced in the King’s Speech, to clamp down on “drip pricing”, the practice whereby additional costs are added into consumer purchases.
Read more:
What is drip pricing and how can we resist it?
Boeing chief admits lapse in quality control after Alaska ‘blowout’ scare
Ryanair says any “ancillary” costs added on to ticket prices, for baggage or seat priority, are legitimate and transparent, and called on the prime minister to focus on online travel agents he accused of “scamming” customers.
“What [Rishi Sunak] should be tackling is the online travel agency scams that are going on where you have these people masquerading as price comparison websites, but then duping people into making bookings and getting overcharged for air fares and overcharged some cases by 200% or 300%. That could be eliminated before the next election.”
He also called for the chief executive of National Air Traffic Control, Martin Rolfe, to be sacked following the air traffic control failure last summer, and described Brexit as “a disaster for the British economy” that made red tape in the UK more onerous than in Europe.
Business
Chancellor’s Mansion House speech vows to rip up red tape – saying post-financial crash rules went ‘too far’
Chancellor Rachel Reeves has criticised post-financial crash regulation, saying it has “gone too far” – setting a course for cutting red tape in her first speech to Britain’s most important gathering of financiers and business leaders.
Increased rules on lenders that followed the 2008 crisis have had “unintended consequences”, Ms Reeves will say in her Mansion House address to industry and the City of London’s lord mayor.
“The UK has been regulating for risk, but not regulating for growth,” she will say.
It cannot be taken for granted that the UK will remain a global financial centre, she is expected to add.
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It’s anticipated Ms Reeves will on Thursday announce “growth-focused remits” for financial regulators and next year publish the first strategy for financial services growth and competitiveness.
Rachel Reeves
Bank governor to point out ‘consequences’ of Brexit
Also at the Mansion House dinner the governor of the Bank of England Andrew Bailey will say the UK economy is bigger than we think because we’re not measuring it properly.
A new measure to be used by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) – which will include the value of data – will probably be “worth a per cent or two on GDP”. GDP is a key way of tracking economic growth and counts the value of everything produced.
Brexit has reduced the level of goods coming into the UK, Mr Bailey will also say, and the government must be alert to and welcome opportunities to rebuild relations.
Mr Bailey will caveat he takes no position on “Brexit per se” but does have to point out its consequences.
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Bailey: Inflation expected to rise
In what appears to be a reference to the debate around UK immigration policy, Mr Bailey will also say the UK’s ageing population means there are fewer workers, which should be included in the discussion.
The greying labour force “makes the productivity and investment issue all the more important”.
“I will also say this: when we think about broad policy on labour supply, the economic arguments must feature in the debate,” he’s due to add.
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The exact numbers of people at work are unknown in part due to fewer people answering the phone when the ONS call.
Mr Bailey described this as “a substantial problem”.
He will say: “I do struggle to explain when my fellow [central bank] governors ask me why the British are particularly bad at this. The Bank, alongside other users, including the Treasury, continue to engage with the ONS on efforts to tackle these problems and improve the quality of UK labour market data.”
Business
Reeves has welcome support from Bank’s governor as she goes for growth and seeks to woo City
When Gordon Brown delivered his first Mansion House speech as chancellor he caused a stir by doing so in a lounge suit, rather than the white tie and tails demanded by convention.
Some 27 years later Rachel Reeves is the first chancellor who would have not drawn a second glance had they addressed the City establishment in a dress.
As the first woman in the 800-year history of her office, Ms Reeves’s tenure will be littered with reminders of her significance, but few will be as symbolic as a dinner that is a fixture of the financial calendar.
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Her host at Mansion House, asset manager Alastair King, is the 694th man out of 696 Lord Mayors of London. The other guest speaker, Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey, leads an institution that is yet to be entrusted to a woman.
Ms Reeves’s speech indicates she wants to lean away from convention in policy as well as in person.
By committing to tilting financial regulation in favour of growth rather than risk aversion, she is going against the grain of the post-financial crash environment.
“This sector is the crown jewel in our economy,” she will tell her audience – many of whom will have been central players in the 2007-08 collapse.
Sending a message that they will be less tightly bound in future is not natural territory for a Labour chancellor.
Her motivation may be more practical than political. A tax-and-spend budget that hit business harder than forewarned has put her economic program on notice and she badly needs the growth elements to deliver.
Rachel Reeves on budget day. Pic: PA
Her plans to consolidate local authority pension schemes so they might match the investing power of their Canadian and Australian counterparts is part of the same theme.
Infrastructure investment is central to Reeves’s plan and these steps, universally welcomed, could unlock the private sector funding required to make it happen.
Bank governor frank on Brexit and growth
If the jury is out in a business financial community absorbing £25bn in tax rises, she has welcome support from Mr Bailey.
He is expected to deliver some home truths about the economic inheritance in plainer language than central bankers sometimes manage.
Britain’s growth potential, he says, “is not a good story”. He describes the labour market as “running against us” in the face of an ageing population.
With investment levels “particularly weak by G7 standards”, he will thank the chancellor for the pension reforms intended to unlock capital investment.
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Governor warns inflation expected to rise
He is frank about Brexit too, more so than the chancellor has dared.
While studiously offering no view on the central issue, Mr Bailey says leaving the EU had slowed the UK’s potential for growth, and that the government should “welcome opportunities to rebuild relations”.
There is a more coded warning too about the risks of protectionism, which is perhaps more likely with Donald Trump in the White House.
“Amid threats to economic security, let’s please remember the importance of openness,” the Bank governor will say.
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All that is welcome for Ms Reeves.
Already a groundbreaking chancellor, she is aiming for a political and economic legacy that extends beyond her gender and the dress code.
Water company United Utilities has reported hundreds of millions in profit as it seeks to further increase customer bills.
The utility serving seven million customers in the northwest of England recorded £335.7m in underlying operating profits for the first half of this year, up nearly 23% from £271.1m a year ago.
It comes as the firm has requested bills rise 32% to make them among the most expensive in England and Wales.
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The proposed average annual bill would increase to £584 by 2030 from the £443 typical yearly charge in the 2023/2024 financial year. Since April 2023 bills have been upped 6.4% and then 7.9%.
Bills hikes were behind the rise in revenue to more than £1.08bn from £975.4m in 2023.
Other ways of assessing profit were lower than the underlying operating sum. Profit before tax reached £140.6m while after tax profit topped £103.1m for the six months to the end of September 2024, both lower than a year earlier.
Boss’s pay
Bonus and benefits payments worth £1.416m were paid to two executives on top of £1.128m in base pay, according to analysis of company filings done by the Liberal Democrats.
It’s down compared with 2022/2023 when three executives were given £1.6m in base pay and £2.456m in bonuses and benefits.
Read more:
Water giant United Utilities strikes £1.8bn pension deal
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The environment
In a year of record sewage outflows into waterways the company was one of just three firms that met the Environment Agency’s top four-star performance ranking.
United Utilities in July came under investigation by water regulator Ofwat for not meeting its obligation to minimise pollution.
In response the company said at the time: “We understand and share people’s concerns about the health of the environment and the operation of wastewater systems, including combined sewer overflows.”
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