I have always been fascinated by Ryanair, or more likely by Michael O’Leary. No interview with him has ever been dull. Whatever you have to say about him as a person, you can’t deny that he has built one of the most remarkable airlines in Europe and arguably a business model that has inspired carriers around the world. His Irish charm, blunt honesty, and ability to unlock a deal have made him the envy of aircraft manufacturers. He famously was quoted in March 2025 saying “I don’t care who makes them, whether it’s Boeing, Airbus or Comac. As long as the price is right, we’d buy it,”. More often the headlines focus on his quips about charging to use the toilet or standing-only seating, but the truth is Ryanair has done an incredible job running a business that is now the flagship operator of the once-troubled 737 MAX, or as legal and regulatory documentation calls it, the 737-8-200.
As Europeans, we look forward to our summer holidays. Our American friends may joke about how much of August we seem to spend away, but one group that certainly doesn’t take a break is the aircrew. Ryanair’s summer operation is as intense as it gets, with aircraft flying more legs per day than almost any other airline in the region. What makes it even more impressive is that the airline still managed an on-time performance of 89% in June and 88% in July, no small feat when you are talking about more than 100,000 flights a month. Kudos to the crews for that achievement.
One reason for that level of efficiency is how Ryanair is deploying its 737 MAX fleet. With Boeing’s latest announcement that 25 new MAX 8 aircraft will be delivered by October instead of next spring, the budget carrier will be able to offer more flights. That curiosity led me to dig into the numbers from this past summer, looking at just how the type was used. Between June and late August 2025, Ryanair Group operated over 320,000 flights, and more than 85,000 of those were flown by the MAX. Put another way, more than one in four Ryanair flights this summer was on the newest Boeing narrowbody, a share that quietly edged up from 26.5% in early June to 27.6% by the end of August.
What fascinates me most is how Ryanair has been steadily weaving the MAX into its network. The aircraft is spread across its operating certificates, but the Irish parent airline took the lion’s share at about 65% of MAX flights, with Malta Air flying around 23% and Buzz in Poland the remaining 11%. The spread has been consistent all summer, which shows the balance Ryanair is striking between markets.
Now I won’t bore you too much about my summer holiday, but of course I did fly Ryanair from Girona to Baden-Baden. Like many of us living in Spain, I was just trying to escape the heat for a few days. We flew on a trusty 737-800, not a MAX this time, but what struck me was how little I bothered with the departure boards. Who really needs them when you already know which aircraft is heading your way, where it is on the map, and how long it will take to get to the gate? That’s the joy of Flightradar24 for me, tracking the incoming aircraft has become part of the trip, and it often tells you more than the screens in the terminal ever will.
Ryanair’s workhorse
Bringing it back to the 737 MAX, I was curious to see which aircraft in the fleet worked the hardest over the summer. The data pointed to EI-HGG. By the end of August it was based out of Birmingham, but over the season it had been all over Europe, rotating through different bases. In total it flew 542 sectors, often clocking up multiple legs a day across a variety of European routes. That made it the busiest Ryanair MAX of the summer, though still about 100 flights behind the group’s overall workhorse, 9H-QAA, a 737-800 based in Brindisi, Italy, that regularly squeezes in eight or nine sectors a day. More broadly, Ryanair’s operation of the MAX is all about keeping the aircraft moving. Across the 88 days of summer I looked at, 189 MAX aircraft averaged more than five sectors per day, with EI-HGG setting the pace. That relentless utilization is classic Ryanair, and it is exactly why the fleet continues to deliver such efficiency.
Looking at the geography, some clear patterns stand out. Spain was the top destination for MAX flights, followed by the UK, Italy, Ireland, and Poland. Yet it was Ireland and Portugal where the MAX really punched above its weight, accounting for more than 40% and 39% of all Ryanair flights respectively. In contrast, Italy saw only 18% of its sectors on the MAX, a reminder of how varied Ryanair’s fleet mix can be depending on the market.
Airports across Europe reveal a really varied picture of Ryanair’s MAX deployment this summer, but the big three are impossible to miss. Dublin came out on top with just under 5,000 MAX flights between June and August, which feels fitting given it is Ryanair’s home base. Then there’s Alicante, which handled close to 4,000 MAX flights. I think most European holidaymakers can say that at some point in their life they’ve either passed through Alicante or know somebody who has, and it makes sense, it’s the gateway to so many summer resorts. Finally, Stansted wasn’t far behind with just under 4,000 MAX flights. For me, these three airports tell the story perfectly: Dublin the base, Alicante the holiday magnet, and Stansted the reliable link out of London.
The long and the short of it
However, one airport not in the top 10 but definitely worth a mention is Tenerife South, nearly 70% of Ryanair services there were flown by the MAX. The airport also hosted the carrier’s longest MAX sector of the season, Warsaw (WMI) to Tenerife South (TFS), with an average flight time of 5 hours 45 minutes. High usage rates were also recorded at Alicante and Faro, albeit to a lesser extent.
At the other end of the spectrum, Rome Fiumicino saw only limited MAX activity, with the aircraft accounting for just 9% of Ryanair flights. The concentration at leisure-heavy bases such as Tenerife South and Faro suggests Ryanair is deploying the MAX to maximise efficiency on longer, high-density routes where its additional seats and lower fuel burn deliver the greatest benefit. However, there are cases when the MAX is being utilized on short but popular routes and the shortest of these is Tetuan to Malaga with an average flight time of 27 minutes – just enough time for a cup of coffee.
I know it sounds obvious, but on short-haul flights passengers rarely get to choose the aircraft type, most of us book on price, slot time, or a mix of the two. But thanks to a little digging (and of course FR24), I can tell you that if you’re a 737 MAX enthusiast, the best place to be this summer was on holiday flights to Portugal or Spain. On the Dublin to Faro route, for example, there was about a two-in-three chance of flying on a MAX. The same applied to Dublin to Málaga, Dublin to Edinburgh, and even Cologne to Palma de Mallorca. By contrast, on the core trunk routes like Dublin to Stansted or Dublin to Gatwick, the MAX was still only a minority presence.
On a personal note, I count myself lucky to have flown on a brand-new Ryanair MAX from Dublin to Stansted. The aircraft was only seven days old, and you could still catch that unmistakable new airplane scent that seems to come only from Seattle. Boeing may have had its challenges keeping pace with Airbus in recent years, and Airbus has certainly delivered some fantastic aircraft across both the narrowbody and widebody markets, but for me, there is still something special about a Ryanair Boeing. As long as Ryanair keeps relying on the 737, I believe Boeing will continue to hold a strong footing in Europe.
Looking back over the summer data, what I see is not a dramatic shift but a quiet and steady integration of the MAX into Ryanair’s network. The numbers point to a measured rollout that delivers high utilisation, broad market coverage, and a strong presence on holiday routes. Ryanair continues to serve the everyday traveller, but in my opinion, it also caters to the aviation enthusiast. Here is an airline operating one of the most efficient aircraft in its market, acquired at the sharpest price (we could write a whole second piece on that alone), while making no excuses for its no-frills approach. It doesn’t dress itself up with loyalty points or try to give you a sense of self-importance. Instead, it focuses on what really matters to those of us who love aviation: the flying itself. And the way Ryanair has brought the MAX into its fleet feels very much in line with the airline’s DNA, pragmatic, and, though it might pain some to admit it, always just a little bit ahead of the rest.
The post Flying through the summer: Ryanair and the 737 MAX appeared first on Flightradar24 Blog.
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