European narrowbody aircraft fleet: independent LCCs' share grows

In spite of the grounding of 38 of its current fleet of 216 aircraft, Wizz Air Group has reiterated its FY2030 target to more than double its fleet, to 449 aircraft.

Ryanair Group, by far the biggest European operator of narrowbodies - low cost or full service - plans to grow to 800 aircraft in FY2030 from 589 today.

Europe's five leading independent low cost airline groups have a combined fleet of 1,354 narrowbodies. Of these, Ryanair and easyJet have 931 between them, while Wizz Air, Jet2.com and Norwegian's aggregated fleet of 423 aircraft is bigger than the combined low cost subsidiaries of IAG, Lufthansa and Air France-KLM.

The five independent LCCs have 26% of all narrowbodies based in Europe, compared with 24% five years ago and 20% a decade ago.

With a combined 990 narrowbody orders, compared with 247 for the big three legacy groups, the independent LCCs look set to grow this share further.