Ireland: Ryanair warns on EU recovery

Ryanair’s annual profit was set to fall for the first time in five years as intense competition in Europe pushed average fares down by about 10 percent over the winter months, Europe’s largest airline by passenger numbers said yesterday. Chief financial officer Howard Millar said passengers were booking only discount fares, a sign Europe might not be recovering as quickly as many people hoped. Two months after its first profit warning in a decade, the airline cut its profit forecast further for the year to March to about e510 million (R7 billion) from e570m. – Reuters