Ryanair chief executive Michael O'Leary, celebrating the budget airline's 20th birthday today, said he was confident the low cost airline boom in Europe had not run out of steam.
The flamboyant entrepreneur said fuel surcharges by other airlines had boosted business for his no-frills airline which he predicted would double its capacity to 70 million passengers in five years.
Michael O'Leary
"We think the biggest driver in our numbers, certainly over the last six months if not 12 months, is fuel surcharges being levied by competition," he said.
Rival low-cost carrier easyJet Plc, which has also refused to introduce surcharges despite high oil prices, warned earlier this week that fuel bills would erode profits this year.
Nevertheless, O'Leary said that he was "just about comfortable" with analyst forecasts that Ryanair will post a €245 million profit for the year just ended when it publishes results next week.
"If anything, the low cost airline boom is increasing," Mr O'Leary told reporters after blowing out 20 candles on a Ryanair birthday cake.
Mr O'Leary, who ranks alongside Virgin boss Richard Branson as one of the most successful self-publicists in the airline business, said: "There is no competitor out there in Europe that threatens Ryanair at our present cost base."
The Ryanair boss, who dressed up as the Pope last year to publicise the expansion of the company's Italian business, forecast that western Europe would still be the biggest area of future expansion.
"Will we carry 70 million passengers in five years time? Yeah, we will," he said.
Never one to miss a chance to knock his rivals, Mr O'Leary boasted that later this year, Ryanair monthly traffic would top 3.5 million passengers, overtaking the total worldwide traffic of British Airways.
"The very fact that a Mickey Mouse Irish airline can start in a field in Waterford 20 years ago and in 20 years overtake the world's self-styled, self proclaimed favourite airline is testament to the almost unstoppable demand for low airfare travel around Europe," he said.
Mr O'Leary has been locked in a long-running war of words with the Government over a second terminal in Dublin which he said should be in competition with the current state-run terminal.
"The whole thing is a bloody shambles," he said of plans announced last week for a new terminal by the year 2009.
"It is a fight for truth and justice against the evil empire of Bertie Ahern and the bearded forces of darkness in the trade union movement."