Bumper summer boosts Ryanair

Budget airline Ryanair, which operates flights out of Birmingham Airport, today announced improved profit and revenue for the six months to the end of September after a bumper summer.

Profit after tax was ahead 37% on the same period last year to £778.4 million with revenue up 14% to £2.89 billion.

The airline's passenger traffic grew 13% to 58.1 million with load factor jumping four points to 93%.

Chief executive Michael O'Leary, said it was a strong set of results.

"We have enjoyed a bumper summer due to a very rare confluence of favourable events including stronger sterling, adverse weather in northern Europe, reasonably flat industry capacity and further savings on our unhedged fuel, as millions of customers switched to Ryanair for our Always Getting Better customer experience programme. Key milestones in the half-year include

This winter Ryanair will open four new bases in Berlin, Corfu, Gothenburg and Milan and add 119 new routes.

It is also taking delivery of 28 new Boeing 737 aircraft which will take the fleet to 340 by the end of the year, with another 330 on order.