Stronger sterling and higher than expected returns on the seats it sold boosted the Irish company's profits, chief executive Michael O'Leary said.

While other airlines may be struggling, Ryanair is confident that the good times will continue.

"We believe our trading performance will continue to be resilient, whilst most of our competitors struggle to maintain their higher fares strategies," chief executive Michael O'Leary said.

But the company plans to drive yields down through the winter to maintain traffic growth and prevent competitors from raising fares.

Passenger increase

Profits jumped to IR £42.9m (£35m) in the six months to 30 September from IR £36.5m in the previous year.

Passenger traffic jumped 12% to 2.89 million, while total revenues were up 17% at IR £153m.

Mr O'Leary says the company is on track to meet its target of six million passengers in the full year.

"Next year, we'll open six new routes to continental aircraft, take delivery of five new aircraft, introduce more low fare deals, and I'd say we are on target to bring our full-year number up to six million passengers," he said.

He said the results reassured analysts who feared that the end of duty free earlier this year could hit Ryanair profits hard.