Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary has warned the budget airline could delay deliveries of Boeing aircraft if they become more expensive amid the impact of Donald Trump’s tariffs.
“If tariffs are imposed on those aircraft, there’s every likelihood we may delay the delivery,” Mr O’Leary told the Financial Times.
Ryanair is due to receive another 25 aircraft from Boeing from August, but he said they are not needed until “kind of March, April 2026.”
“We might delay them and hope that common sense will prevail,” he added.
The US president imposed the steepest American tariffs on imports in over a century, with a baseline tariff on imports to the US of 10 per cent.
Levies of 25 per cent have also been imposed on steel and aluminium, key materials in the production of aeroplanes.
Planes that have finished production and parts imported into the US will be hit by the 10 per cent levy; meanwhile, building planes are set to become more expensive, as manufacturers rely on international supply chains throughout Asia, Europe and the US, the publication reported.
Mr O’Leary said there would be a “significant debate” over whether manufacturers or airlines should be the ones responsible for the costs of tariffs: “The airlines will say the manufacturer must pay. I’m sure the manufacturer will insist the airline pays.”
Ryanair is not the only airline that is voicing its concerns on how the tariffs could affect the aviation industry.
Ed Bastian, chief executive of Delta Air Lines, said last week that the US carrier would defer its orders from Airbus rather than pay tariffs.
Delta is scheduled to receive 10 wide-body jets from Airbus’ European factories this year, according to aviation consultancy Cirium.
“We will not be paying tariffs … If you start to put [an] incremental cost on top of an aircraft, it gets very difficult to make that math work. So, we’ve been clear with Airbus on that,” Mr Bastian said during a Q1 earnings call.
Rob Morris, head of Cirium’s consultancy business, Ascend, told the Financial Times that a 10 per cent tariff was significant for aircraft sales.
He added that Delta alone would be “easily looking at additional costs of close to $150m” for its Airbus widebody aircraft in 2025.
Meanwhile, one unnamed aerospace chief executive told the publication there were still “a lot of questions” over how tariffs would be levied and calculated.
“There’s definitely going to need to be work to figure out how those costs are passed along,” he said. “The ultimate person paying the cost is the person buying the ticket.”
Frontier Group, the parent company of Frontier Airlines, has withdrawn its financial projections for the year, while Delta Air Lines has also retracted its full-year guidance.
Frontier has cited a weakening in travel demand, and said that the uncertain environment has meant it’s unable to affirm its full-year outlook.
Since Donald Trump was elected as president, official US data has also revealed a decline in tourists booking trips to the country, with a 17 per cent slump in Europeans in March 2025.
For more travel news and advice, listen to Simon Calder’s podcast
