Ryanair (LON:RYA) reported a record 10 percent rise in profits, benefitting from a rise in passenger numbers.
The budget Irish airline said profits after tax rose 10 percent to €1.45 billion (£1.27 billion).
Passenger numbers had also risen by 9 percent to 130.3 million in the 12 months to the end of March.
The growth was attributed to attractive lower fares, Ryanair said. In particular, German, Italian and Spanish markets saw the biggest growth.
Nevertheless, Ryanair said it remained cautious with rising costs threatening to impact profits.
Chief executive Michael O’Leary said of the pressures ahead: “Our outlook for FY19 (full-year 2019) is on the pessimistic side of cautious.
“We expect to grow traffic by 7 percent to 139 million, at flat load factors of 95 percent.
“Unit costs this year will rise 9 percent due to higher staff and oil prices which will, when adjusted for volume growth, add more than €400m to our fuel bill.
“Ex-fuel unit cost will rise by up to 6 percent as we annualise pilot and cabin crew pay increases, and invest in our business and our systems to facilitate a six year growth plan to 600 aircraft and 200m guests per annum.”
He added: “Forward bookings are strong but pricing remains soft. Since only half of Easter fell in April, we expect a 5% fare decline in Q1 (quarter one) but a 4% rise in Q2 fares.
“While still too early to accurately forecast close-in summer bookings or H2 fares, we are cautiously guiding broadly flat average fares for FY19.”
Ryanair hit the headlines back in September, after the airline had to cancel thousands of flights due to an issue with pilot rotas.
The airline estimated a bill of €25 million (£22.1 million) from compensation and lost fares related to the scheduling error.
Shares in Ryanair are currently trading up 4.00 percent as of 12.24PM (GMT).