London — Ryanair, the Irish-based budget carrier, will buy 100 Boeing 737-800 aircraft in the next eight years and has taken options on 50 more planes, the airline and the manufacturer announced Thursday.
Terms of the deal, described as the largest-ever order for the popular 737, were not announced. Ryanair said the "catalogue value" of the deal was $9.1 billion, but said Boeing's offer was "exceptionally competitive."
The first deliveries are expected this year, the companies said.
In a related move, Ryanair placed a $1 billion order for jet engines made by CFM International to power the jets. CFM is a joint venture of General Electric Co. and the French manufacturer Snecma Moteurs.
The airline's chief executive, Michael O'Leary, said the deal "will allow Ryanair and Boeing to revolutionize short-haul travel all over Europe in the same way that Southwest and Boeing have in the United States."
He said the expansion would create more than 3,000 jobs at Ryanair.
Ryanair projects that it will carry more than 10 million passengers in the year ending March 31, making it the seventh-largest international scheduled airline in Europe.
The airline has grown rapidly through a formula of no-frills short-haul service to secondary European airports. It also has focused heavily on Internet sales, selling 90 percent of its tickets online.
Ryanair, which serves 12 countries on 64 routes, will operate a fleet of 44 Boeing 737s this summer. The new planes will replace the carrier's existing 737-200 fleet and expand its capacity toward a target of 40 million passengers per year.
Boeing announced earlier this month that it had sold 312 commercial jets in 2001, about half the total of the previous year. Significantly, Boeing's order book for the year was smaller than the preliminary total of 352 announced by its European rival, Airbus.
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