LONDON: Signs that the boundless growth in budget airlines of the past 10 years is coming to an end emerged yesterday as Ryanair pulled out of talks with Boeing for an order of 200 aircraft and said it would scale back investment in planes from 2011. Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary made good on his threat last month to scrap his expansion plans if he could not agree a deal with Boeing by Christmas — and to hand the money saved to shareholders instead. Douglas McNeill at Astaire Securities said: “It’s certainly a change from the expansion of the past, but then no company can grow at the kind of rates we have seen in the low-cost carrier sector over the past few years.” Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou, founder of rival easyJet, said: “I’m delighted that Michael O’Leary now accepts what I’ve been saying for over a year - the era of endless fast growth and [an] ever larger aircraft fleet is near its end. Low-cost airlines are now the mainstream way to fly in Europe. As such, it’s getting difficult to find significant new passenger traffic which is profitable.” While Ryanair and Boeing were able to agree on pricing, the Irish carrier terminated the negotiations because the American plane-maker wanted to change delivery conditions. O’Leary said: “Ryanair has made clear to Boeing that we will not order aircraft if we believe that either the pricing or the other contractual terms and conditions will be inferior to those we currently enjoy, as this would not be a wise or sensible use of shareholders’ funds.” The breakdown of talks will not affect Ryanair’s planned delivery of 112 Boeing aircraft during the next three years. It is also scheduled to take delivery of 48 planes next year. But it will now bring forward plans to “significantly” reduce growth and capital expenditure, in order to hand back money to shareholders between 2012 and 2015. “We have no plans to reopen discussions with Boeing or any other aircraft manufacturers,” O’Leary said. “Instead we will focus our efforts on maintaining Ryanair’s strong traffic and new route growth into 2010 and we look forward to briefing shareholders in the first quarter of the new year with a revised strategy, which will comprise much reduced capital expenditures through 2011 and 2012, thereby generating substantial surplus cash balances for distribution during the period 2012-2015.” Some analysts said air fares would have to go up for Ryanair to maintain profit growth.