Ryanair CEO Michael O'Leary believes his Wizz Air colleague József Váradi has learned that he cannot compete successfully. The Irishman sees one possibility for this in the Boeing aircraft, which he believes are cheaper.

In an interview with Aviation.DIrect, Michael O'Leary talks about current developments in the industry and also explains that they are currently looking for 40 to 50 used Boeing machines that could land at Lauda Europe. The manager expects the Europe-wide lifting of the mask requirement in commercial aircraft by the end of April 2022 at the latest.

Aviation.Direct: Your competitor Wizz Air deleted 15 more destinations from the forthcoming Vienna summer flight schedule 2022...

Michael O'Leary: 20 are there.

Aviation.Direct: …we didn't take into account the Ukraine and Moldova routes, as these are generally not served due to the war that Putin instigated. Irrespective of this: Wizz Air is reducing the fleet stationed in Vienna. What is your message to József Váradi?

Michael O'Leary: I have no message for József Váradi. He's a good competitor, but I think he's always learned that where he wants to compete with Ryanair, he can't be successful. Ryanair has lower fares, lower costs and better services.

Aviation.Direct: Ryanair expands in Vienna, Wizz Air reduces. In your opinion, what is the reason for the completely contrary approach?

Michael O'Leary: I don't know, except that Ryanair has cheaper planes. We've hedged our fuel and I think the real challenge for Wizz this year is that they don't have fuel hedging and so they're paying much higher oil prices. We have the advantage of being fortunate enough to hedge our fuel costs for the next twelve months and this allows us to expand here in Vienna and pass on the benefit of our much lower oil prices to our customers.

Aviation.Direct: With Lauda Europe, Buzz and Malta Air, three Ryanair subsidiaries with aircraft based in Vienna will be active in the 2022 summer flight schedule. What is the meaning and purpose of this triple structure?

Michael O'Leary: Because they have the capacity. Ryanair handles the sale and we charter capacity from Malta Air, from Lauda Europe, from Buzz and also from Ryanair DAC. We take capacity wherever we can get it.

Aviation.Direct: How many aircraft does each of your group airlines operate from Vienna?

Michael O'Leary: In the 2022 summer flight schedule, 12 to 13 Airbus A320s from Lauda Europe will fly from Vienna. A total of 19 aircraft will be in service, leaving the remainder to be operated by Buzz and Malta Air.

Aviation.Direct: Is there a special reason why you don't station any Boeing 737 Max 200 in Vienna?

Michael O'Leary: The challenge for us this year is that we only have 60 Max aircraft due to our various agreements and regulations. About twenty of these aircraft will be registered in Buzz, in another Polish registry. A further twenty will be registered in Malta on the Malta Air register and the remainder will be in DAC. However, since these are new aircraft, we want to house them in the main maintenance bases for the first big summer of Max operations. So the planes will be mainly in Dublin, in London-Stansted, in Milan-Bergamo and in Kraków. So for the first year or summer we want to put them near the maintenance bases.

Aviation.Direct: What type of aircraft will Lauda Europe fly in the future? Is there any news on the talks with Airbus or should pilots already start Boeing training?

Michael O'Leary: We currently have around thirty Airbus aircraft. Most of them are leased. We have leases for at least the next three years. We are very open to extending these leases if there is a financial incentive to do so. We are ready to consider new Airbus aircraft and also new Boeing aircraft. We currently have a tender on the market; we think there is a chance to find another 40 or 50 good used Boeing planes because the whole Russian situation has turned the plane leasing market upside down as you know. We think there might be other planes out there that don't have a home. So we always try to be opportunistic.

Aviation.Direct: During your last press conference, when asked whether the MS-21 would be of interest to you, one of the answers you gave was: “Never trust the Russians”. Unfortunately, you were a kind of clairvoyant, because Putin launched a military attack on Ukraine. How did the war affect aviation? How far do you think fuel prices can go up?

Michael O'Leary: Nobody knows the answer to this question, because it depends on how long the war in Ukraine lasts and whether it spreads beyond Ukraine and becomes a larger region of conflict between Russia and Europe. We all hope that this situation in Ukraine will be resolved quickly. We all hope that Putin is defeated and then things quickly return to normal. But the obvious likely impact of the war in Ukraine on the airline industry would be a much higher oil price over the next 12-18 months. We've hedged 12 percent of our fuel for the next 80 months at about $65 a barrel so we're somewhat isolated. But I think once the situation calms down, there is enough oil in the world. Higher oil prices like $130-140 a barrel will bring back a lot of US shale oil capacity. It is rumored that the US could encourage the Iranians to start supplying oil. So the best antidote to high oil prices is high oil prices, because high oil prices result in more supply in the market. The industry will certainly face much higher oil prices in the next six to twelve months, but I think what you will see before the end of March is that Lufthansa and AUA will announce fuel surcharges for this summer. Higher oil prices will therefore also lead to higher airfares this summer.

Aviation.Direct: How strong are the booking figures at the moment in direct comparison to summer 2019?

Michael O'Leary: They're strong, they build up fast, but they're not that strong yet. We're still about 15 percent behind on what we accomplished on that day in 2019. So we still have a lot of work to do to catch up, but we sold more than four million bookings a week for the entire month of February through February 24, when Putin invaded Russia, which then fell 20 percent in the first week . Now things are looking up again. Bookings are behind where they were in 2019 but are catching up fast with weekly booking records but it is very uncertain. So when there is negative COVID news, like Omicron in December, they fall very quickly, and when there is negative news about the Russian invasion, they fall very quickly, but then they bounce back.

Aviation.Direct: When do you think masks will be lifted on planes?

Michael O'Leary: Generally, it will be lifted when mask restrictions are lifted in most European countries. I think that will probably be the case at the end of March or the end of April. However, the challenge for us is that we would not lift mandatory mask restrictions until they are lifted in almost all EU countries. But I think it's coming, and we think it'll be sometime later in April or May.

Aviation.Direct: Ryanair serves many destinations in Europe. Some of them are so little known that you learn about their existence for the first time on your homepage. Why don't you actually fly to Spitsbergen to see the polar bears?

Michael O'Leary: Probably because we don't have a low-cost deal for Spitsbergen in Norway yet. In general, we are in constant dialogue with all airports in Europe. Wherever we grow, there are growth incentives, meaning there are discounts for growth. Norway is not a country that promotes air travel, although Norway's only export is oil, and they are happy to tax air travel in Norway. The country has two major incumbent airlines, SAS and Norwegian, both of which have gone bankrupt and are losing money. So flights to Norway are not a realistic offer at the moment. We prefer to do more flights to Vienna and Vienna is a much more attractive destination than Svalbard in Norway and it's not that freezing cold either. It certainly has many beautiful sides, but it's not exactly Vienna. Polar bears are fascinating animals, but our customers are not.