The airline was due to take charge of its first 737 Max jet next month

Shares in UK regional airline Flybe soared over 33% after Aer Lingus-owner IAG reportedly joined the race to buy the business.

Ryanair has been named as a possible significant beneficiary — though an unlikely outright buyer — from an expected sale of British regional airline Flybe.

The world’s 10 leading airlines pulled in a combined $29.7bn (€25.4bn) from ancillary revenues last year, further underlining the importance of non-air fare income streams for the aviation industry.

Ryanair’s pilot uprising shows little signs of abating, with an ad-hoc group demanding that a wage increase turned down by crews at London’s Stansted Airport be doubled and extended across the airline’s European bases.

Ryanair has reappointed its previous pilots and punctuality chief to lead what it calls “a significant transformation” in the way it rewards and interacts with its pilots, after the recent rostering problems which led it to cancel more than 2,000 flights in the past six weeks.

Ryanair is expected to post after-tax profits of €320m when it publishes first quarter results early next week.

Increasing competition for the long-haul, low-cost transatlantic market will be a boon for passengers as airlines tussle for a share of the market, a leading aviation analyst has said, writes Padraig Hoare.

Increasing competition for the long-haul, low-cost transatlantic market will be a boon for passengers as airlines tussle for a share of the market, a leading aviation analyst has said.

A leading aviation analyst has warned passengers could be the biggest casualty after the EU ordered UK-based airlines to relocate to EU countries or sell shares to EU nationals to avoid losing major routes.

Ryanair expects to carry 120m passengers in its current financial year, slightly more than it initially anticipated, but just shy of analyst estimates.

It’s a good illustration of how strong a run of growth Ryanair is on that the country’s main bookmaker is hawking short odds on the airline reaching profit levels of €1bn in its current financial year.

Analysts are already expecting Ryanair to beat its passenger growth targets for its current financial year, even though only one month of the year has elapsed.

Ryanair said yesterday it would start flights between Castellon airport in Spain and Britain in September, in the first regular commercial flights to operate from the “ghost” airport since it opened in 2011.

Ryanair’s impressive winter performance continued last month with the airline yesterday reporting a 30% year-on-year rise in passenger numbers for January.

Ryanair’s share price jumped by almost 3% at one point yesterday to an all-time high, on the back of the company kicking off a week of airline traffic updates with strong growth figures.

A stronger-than-expected jump in passenger numbers for the first month of its winter schedule has prompted Ryanair to increase its full-year profit guidance for the third time this year.

One of the last letters from the Titanic is to go on display this summer at the new Belfast visitors’ centre dedicated to the liner.

At least 40 out of 80 pilot whales stranded on a remote northern New Zealand beach have died, and more whales are joining them on land, officials warned today.

The Ireland Schools added the England Schools to the scalp of the French Schools at Templeville Road today before next week's Schoolboys International Champioship decider against the Wales Schools.