Ryanair unveils record profits

The Dublin-based carrier flew 75.8 million passengers in the year to March 31, an increase of 5 per cent on a year earlier and helping it to lift net profits by 25 per cent to 502.6m euro (£405m). Ryanair flies from a number of regional airports including Leeds-Bradford.

A 30 per cent jump in fuel costs was offset by a 16 per cent rise in average fares, partly due to the grounding of 80 aircraft over the winter, while ancillary revenues such as in-flight sales surged 11 per cent to 886.2m euro (£714.7m).

Ryanair expects passenger numbers to rise by another 5 per cent this year but with its fuel bill increasing by another 320m euro (£258m) it has warned profits this year were likely to be in the range of 400m euro (£323m) and 440m euro (£355m).

Mr O’Leary said the combination of rising oil prices and EU-wide recession would continue to hurt the sector following the failures over the last year of Malev in Hungary, Spanair and Cimber Sterling in Denmark.

He added: “We expect more European failures in 2012, as higher oil prices and recession continues to expose failed airline models as well as subscale or peripheral carriers.”

Mr O’Leary said that despite the rising number of airline failures, many of Europe’s governments continued to treat the sector and airline passengers as a “cash cow” to fund their taxation.

He said: “UK air passenger duty has caused traffic to decline by 6 per cent since 2007, while the UK Government’s ‘do nothing’ policy about runway capacity in the South East is encouraging traffic and tourism to bypass high-cost London airports in favour of expanding airports in Spain, France and Holland.”