Ryanair has today announced a half year profit of €1.4 billion for the six months to the end of September.
That figure includes a one-off gain of €317m from selling its stake in Aer Lingus to IAG.
The airline said its profit after tax rose by 37% to €1.088 billion, while revenues for the six month period rose by 14% to €4.04 billion.
Ryanair said it carried 58 million passengers over the first six months of the year, representing 13% growth in traffic.
In July Ryanair became the first EU airline to carry more than 10 million passengers in a single month.
Ryanair said today that it expects growth in its traffic to continue.
The airline previously said it expected to carry 104 million passengers this year, and it has now upgraded that forecast to 105 million.
"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," commented Ryanair's Chief Executive Michael O'Leary.
He said the airline's "Always Getting Better" programme is also attracting new customers to Ryanair. As part of the programme, Ryanair is due to implement a new personalised website, new cabin crew uniforms, menus and better seating on planes over the next six months.
Ryanair's average fares in the six month period rose by 2% to €56, but the airline predicted that third quarter average fares will be broadly flat while fourth quarter fares will fall by about 4%.
On fuel prices, Ryanair said it had taken advantage of oil price weakness over the summer to further extend its fuel hedges to 9% to cover the full year of 2017. It said that after already hedging its US fuel needs, it expects the moves to deliver fuel savings of about €430m in 2017.
Mr O'Leary said the airline is now guiding that its full year net profit will be towards the upper end of its €1.175-1.225 billion range.
"However, we caution that this guidance is heavily dependent on the strength of close-in bookings in Q4 where we have almost zero visibility yet are planning to deliver 22% traffic growth," Mr O'Leary said.
He said that looking beyond the current year, based on these stronger than expected load factors, the airline has raised its long term traffic target from 160 million to 180 million customers a year by 2024.
Ryanair shares opened lower in Dublin trade this morning, which Goodbody Stockbrokers analyst Mark Simpson said might be due to the fact that the airline did not significantly beat forecasts.
However, the share price has since rallied and is now up over 2.5% for the day.
The airline's shares remain 81% higher than last year's levels.
Aer Lingus owner IAG, Lufthansa and Air France-KLM have all reported strong quarterly results in recent days on strong demand for summer travel and cheaper fuel.
Meanwhile, Ryanair is backing a campaign to keep Britain in the European Union, its chief executive said today.
British Prime Minister David Cameron is seeking to renegotiate the terms of Britain's EU membership and has promised to hold a referendum on the topic by the end of 2017.
"We're very actively supporting the campaign to keep the UK in the European Union," Michael O'Leary told a news conference in London today.
"There's absolutely no doubt that the UK economy is better off in Europe than outside of Europe," he added.
Mr O'Leary said there was a need for a "reformed Europe", calling for a set-up with less regulation and "petty bureaucracy".
"We need the UK to stay a committed member of Europe just to keep some kind of more sensible economic approach," he said.
