Michael O'Leary expressed concern about delivery delays in a recent interview with Reuters.
“The situation continues to deteriorate slightly, which is unfortunate,” he told the news agency.
O'Leary added that there was a risk that Ryanair would only receive 20 to 25 737 MAX jets by next summer, instead of the 29 that were due for delivery.
The Financial Times reported that the airline was due to receive 10 jets this month, but O'Leary said “we'll be lucky to get five”.
“We are working closely with Stephanie Pope and the new team at Boeing, but they continue to let us down,” he told Reuters.
Pope, who was appointed in March, will head Boeing's commercial airplanes division after Kelly Ortberg was named CEO earlier this month.
AFP reported that O'Leary said Boeing was also paying Ryanair a “small amount of compensation” for the delivery delays.
Boeing slowed production after the Alaska Airlines explosion in January, when a quality-control glitch caused a 737 Max to leave the factory with a missing key bolt and a door plug to detach from the plane in mid-air.
The entire industry is also struggling with supply chain issues.
O'Leary also seems unconvinced by Boeing's certification schedule for the 737 Max 10 and Max 7.
He told Reuters the Max 7 was originally due to be certified by the end of this year but now expects it to be certified in the first half of 2025.
He added that it was “impossible to know” whether the Max 10 would be certified as planned in the first half of 2025.
The certification delay is another challenge Boeing's new CEO must contend with. Emirates President Tim Clark and the CEO of Qatar Airways have both suggested the long-awaited wide-body 777X could be delivered as soon as 2026.
Boeing did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.
