Ryanair Group chief executive Michael O'Leary has praised Boeing's performance over the past several months as the US airframer ramped up production of 737 Max 8 jets. The airline has now received 23 of 29 deliveries planned for this year. The aircraft were originally scheduled to arrive by the start of the summer. Two more are set to arrive in November and four in January and February next year. That should take annual passenger numbers for fiscal 2026, which runs to end-March, up to 206-207 million, against 200 million in fiscal 2025. Arrival of the Max 8s will complete the deliveries from a 210-strong order for the variant, which should enable Ryanair to reach a milestone 215-216 million passengers in fiscal 2027. "That will be the first year since the Max groundings [in 2019] that we're not dealing with Boeing delivery delays in the spring or disruption to our summer schedule," said O'Leary during a financial results call on 3 November. He particularly praises Boeing Commercial Airplanes chief executive Stephanie Pope and group chief Kelly Ortberg as doing a "terrific job" in driving up timelines and the quality of deliveries, including receiving permission from the US Federal Aviation Administration in October to raise the monthly delivery rate from 38 to 42. O'Leary expects this to increase further to 46 in March-April next year. O'Leary previously complained extensively about Boeing's performance, both concerning delays to the delivery of new aircraft and production quality. Back in March 2024, he told Cirium this included basic errors like spanners being found under floorboards and absent armrests on seats, things which "shouldn't be missing when you're buying a $100 million piece of kit". He revealed at the time that the airline has a team of engineers on the ground in the USA to examine aircraft before delivery, with another 48h of inspection taking place when they arrived in Dublin. Fast forward two-and-a-half years and O'Leary is so confident that the 737 Max 10 will be certified by the end of the first quarter 2027 at the latest, ahead of Ryanair's first 15 scheduled Max 10 deliveries in spring of that year, that Ryanair has already approached the markets to hedge its US dollar requirements for those aircraft. "All of the deliveries on the ground in terms of quality and what they are delivering to us has been nothing but impressive for the past three or four months," says O'Leary. The arrival of the first 15 Max 10s should, Ryanair believes, enable it to grow to around 225 million passengers in fiscal 2028 and then be "off and running" on a decade-long growth spurt to 300 million passengers by 2034. Ryanair has 150 Max 10s on order and taken another 150 options for the variant.

Alliance Airlines parent company Alliance Aviation Services has extended the trading halt on its shares to 7 November as it prepares to issue a trading update that will show it missing consensus forecasts for its full-year earnings. Shares in the company have not traded on the Australian Securities Exchange since it initiated a halt on 31 October, which was initially expected to lift before trade opens on 4 November but instead it has extended the trading suspension. In a letter to the ASX, Alliance states that the suspension will allow it to meet its disclosure obligations and make a trading update, "which will likely result in Alliance's FY26 earnings being materially lower than analyst consensus estimates of Alliance's FY26 earnings". "This is a result of recent repairs and maintenance costs and depreciation charges being higher than anticipated," it adds. Ground Events data shows that the carrier had six aircraft undergo C-level and heavy maintenance checks in the six months to 31 October, and that four of its Embraer E190-E1s are expected to undergo C-checks over the next year. Alliance did not provide specific guidance when it released its 2025 fiscal year results in August but commented that it had a "solid outlook for FY26" and was shifting its emphasis towards "disciplined financial management, with a particular focus on optimising cash flow and reducing debt levels". The carrier has 39 E190s in service and nine in storage, fleets data shows, plus 20 Fokker 100s and nine Fokker 70s in service, with two and one in storage, respectively. Alliance's announcement will come ahead of its annual general meeting, which is scheduled for 27 November, and will formally see long-term joint managing director Scott McMillan step down from that role but remain in an executive capacity until July 2026.

Regional aviation has rebounded strongly since the Covid crisis, but supply-chain issues are hampering growth and will continue to do so for another year or two, speakers suggested during a recent Cirium webinar. "Recovery has been strong in 2025, and we've seen higher upswings, [but] whether that will continue in 2026 we will have to see," TrueNoord commercial chief Richard Jacobs said during Cirium's 'Regional aircraft: market dynamics in focus' webinar on 22 October. "Thus far, it's been very positive. With every aircraft – be it turboprop or large regional jet – offered for remarketing, we would've been able to place it three times over." Loganair fleet director Sylvain Gloux agrees that the market has been "recovering strongly", but notes that the recovery past 2019 levels could have been much stronger were it not for supply-chain issues. "What we've seen in the past year is a strong recovery in lease rates and values, but this is the result of limited capacity," says Gloux, although he adds that "we're now seeing some stability and we may be reaching a peak in terms of values and lease rates". The biggest issue for airlines, in his view, is a "lack of visibility" on aircraft delivery times, which makes it difficult to plan schedules with certainty. Gloux believes the supply-chain issues are stabilising rather than improving. "We see some stability going into 2026, but it will take a couple of years," he warns. There were differing views among the panellists on when supply issues for OEMs and MRO providers would be resolved. Jacobs paints the rosiest picture. By 2027, he asserts, "the worst will be behind us". Gloux says he is "less optimistic", believing that "in 2028, we will be in better shape as an industry" – a view shared by Alex Vathylakis, principal valuations analyst at Cirium Ascend Consultancy. The supply-chain challenges facing the regional aviation market are a "new reality" that will likely remain in place "for the coming years", says Vathylakis. A lack of regional aircraft replacement options is also making life difficult for operators in this space, he observes. For instance, the size of the Embraer 175 fleet in the US market has "increased strongly" over the last five or six years and this aircraft "continues to gain traction". However, this is "one of the signs there's a lack of new options", in Vathylakis's view. He notes that Embraer and ATR essentially have a monopoly in the turboprop and regional jet markets, with the ATR 72-600 "enjoying the [70-seat turboprop] market on its own" while a "lack of direct replacement options" in the 50-seat jet segment pushes operators towards larger regional aircraft which "might not work for everyone". Indeed, Gloux points out that 50-seaters "would be more suitable" for many of Loganair's routes, but such aircraft are "very difficult to find", and "the absence of replacement options in the near term is an issue". Vathylakis says "large turboprop deliveries are facing a new reality post-Covid", as an "ATR ramp-up is only expected next year" while large regional jet deliveries have "halved post-Covid". "Supply of ready-to-go turboprops remains tight with minimal availability from lessors," he adds. "It's a similar story with serviceable regional jets: supply is tight with no clear signs of improvement."