Ryanair has announced it will add 2,000 jobs in Ireland by 2030 amid efforts to grow annual passenger numbers to 10m over the next several years.
The budget airline confirmed the news to celebrate its investment in the Irish economy over the past 35 years, trumpeting figures from a PwC that show the company and its customers spend €1.5bn in Ireland every year.
The PwC report also found that Ryanair supports 26,000 jobs in Ireland and carries 200m passenger per year on its 200 routes from seven Irish airports.
Eddie Wilson, CEO of Ryanair, said the company plans to invest €20bn in new technology aircraft over the next decade and will open a €50m training centre for pilots and cabin crew in Santry as well as an €8m engineering excellence centre in Dublin.
Other investments include €10m in a three-bay maintenance hangar in Shannon that will require 200 new jobs in Clare, and a commitment to grow Ryanair Labs from 600 to 1,000 high-tech development jobs over the next five years.
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Wilson said the carriers aims to grow traffic to and from Ireland by 50% from 20m to 30m passengers per year by 2030, while add 2,000 new jobs for pilots, cabin crew, engineers, and IT developers over that span.
"Today’s PwC Report quantifies the enormous contribution made by Ryanair, our people, and our passengers to the Irish economy over the last 35 years," Wilson said. "Ryanair has been one of Ireland’s most important indigenous success stories since first founded by the Ryan family in 1985.
"From very modest beginnings in Waterford, Ryanair has grown to become Europe’s largest airline, and the world’s number five airline by passenger volumes. However, we are now embarking on a new decade of growth and investment here in Ireland."
He went onto add that it is "vital" that Ryanair continues to promote low-cost environmentally efficient connectivity for Irish citizens and visitors to Europe and the world, and also that the firm continue to bring many millions of European visitors to Ireland on a year-round basis.
"We call on the Irish government to pursue policies to promote low-fare connectivity, and reduce the environmental impact of air travel by pushing for urgent reform of Europe’s chronically inefficient ATC system, and opposing unfair environmental taxes which penalise the most efficient point to point flights, while exempting the most polluting long-haul and connecting flights across Europe," he continued.
"We wish to thank the successive Irish government for their help and support over the past three decades, which has allowed and enabled Ryanair to become a global leader in the airline industry, and one of Ireland’s best-known indigenous brands.”
Speaking at the event, Tánaiste Leo Varadkar described Ryanair "one of the world's most innovative airlines and a formidable Irish company" that has "democratised foreign travel across Europe, making overseas holidays affordable for millions of people".
Ryanair has seen passenger numbers recover this year to a monthly record of 16.9m in August, but boss Michael O'Leary warned that the era of ultra-low fares was over due to rising oil prices.
During the company's latest full financial year, which ended in March, Ryanair made a loss of €241m, an improvement from the €1bn loss it suffered a year earlier and in comparison to the €649m profit booked in 2019-20.
Revenues of €4.8bn were still well short of the €8.5bn turnover recorded in the last non-Covid year, but again a major improvement on the €1.6bn figure of 2020-21.
Pic (l-r): Michael O’Leary, Eddie Wilson and Leo Varadkar.
