Following the ungrounding of the MAX in December 2019, Ryanair will take delivery of its first Boeing 737 MAX in the coming days. This will be the airline‘s first MAX delivery from a firm order of 210 aircraft confirmed by Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary, who defined the aircraft as a “Gamechanger“.
“We’re in the next number of days taking the first delivery of our new 737 Gamechanger aircraft,” O’Leary told CNBC Television in an interview on April 14, 2021.
Initial deliveries were delayed for two years following the two fatal crashes of Lion Air Flight 610 on October 29, 2018 and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 on March 10, 2019, resulting in the grounding of the variant on March 10, 2019. The European Union Aviation Safety Agency has issued the final Airworthiness Directive to unground the Boeing 737 MAX aircraft in Europe on January 27, 2021.