DUBLIN, September 11, 2008 (AFP) - A Ryanair flight was forced to return to Dublin airport on Thursday after the plane's tail hit the runway as it took off for London, an airport authority spokeswoman said.

The plane landed safely and none of the crew or 148 passengers were injured.

The European Commission has written to Irish budget airline Ryanair seeking information on whether ...

Irish budget airline Ryanair said Thursday its decision to cancel reservations made at third-party ...

Spain`s transport ministry said Tuesday it was investigating Irish budget airline Ryanair over its ...

ROME, July 28, 2008 (AFP) - The Italian competition authority said on Monday it had imposed a 54,100-euro (85,000-dollar) fine on Irish low-cost airline Rynair for false fare advertising.

The authority cited an April 2007 advertisement on the Ryanair website offering flights starting at 10 euros, one way, taxes included to several foreign destinations.

LONDON, July 28, 2008 (AFP) - Irish low-cost airline Ryanair said on Monday that net profit dived 85 percent during its first quarter compared with the figure a year earlier as the cost of fuel rocketed.

The group said the outlook for the rest of 2008 was 'poor' -- comments which along with the first-quarter earnings news prompted Ryanair's share price to tumble, dealers said.

LONDON, July 15, 2008 (AFP) - Irish low-cost airline Ryanair said Tuesday it would slash flights from Dublin in the 2008-2009 winter season, blaming high jet fuel and airport costs.

The no-frills carrier said in a statement that it would operate 18 aircraft at Dublin airport this winter, with fewer than 1,200 weekly flights.

LONDON, July 8, 2008 (AFP) - Irish low-cost airline Ryanair said Tuesday that it has exercised an option to buy three Boeing 737-800 planes for delivery in 2010 but did not disclose the price.

LONDON, June 3, 2008 (AFP) - Irish low-cost airline Ryanair said Tuesday that it would avoid losses this year even if oil prices remain around 130 dollars per barrel but predicted a rash of bankruptcies elsewhere in the sector.

LONDON, June 3, 2008 (AFP) - Irish low-cost airline Ryanair said Tuesday that net profit jumped by a fifth to a record 481 million euros (749 million dollars) in 2007-08 despite surging jet fuel costs.

Net profit soared by 20 percent in the 12 months to March 31, 2008, from 401 million euros in the previous financial year, Ryanair said in an earnings release.

WARSAW, April 29, 2008 (AFP) - A Polish airport was closed Tuesday after a Ryanair plane carrying 170 passengers slipped off the runway amid strong winds, Lodz airport spokesman Milosz Wika said.

BERLIN, April 24, 2008 (AFP) - German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck has pressed Irish low-cost airline Ryanair to donate 25,000 euros (40,000 dollars) to a secret police memorial after the carrier used his image in advertising, a press report said Thursday.

BRUSSELS, March 26, 2008 (AFP) - Irish low-cost airline Ryanair will have to cut 400 million euros (628 million dollars) from its costs to offset the impact of soaring fuel prices, chief executive Michael O'Leary said Wednesday.

LUXEMBOURG , March 19, 2008 (AFP) - A European court on Wednesday rejected a request by Irish Airline Aer Lingus to prevent low-cost rival and major shareholder Ryanair from exercising its voting rights in the company.

Aer Lingus is seeking to force the larger Ryanair to sell its 29.4-percent stake in the former Irish flag-carrier following a failed takeover bid.

PARIS, Feb 27, 2008 (AFP) - Irish low-cost airline Ryanair said Wednesday it has filed a complaint with the European Commission against what it claimed is unfair Dutch state aid for Amsterdam's Schipol Airport and Air France-KLM.

PARIS, Feb 5, 2008 (AFP) - President Nicolas Sarkozy and France's new first lady Carla Bruni on Tuesday won a lawsuit filed against Irish budget airline Ryanair for featuring a photo of the couple in an ad campaign.

PARIS, Feb 5, 2008 (AFP) - President Nicolas Sarkozy and France's new first lady Carla Bruni on Tuesday won a lawsuit filed against budget airline Ryanair for featuring a photo of their couple in an ad campaign.

LONDON, Feb 4, 2008 (AFP) - Irish low-cost airline Ryanair warned on Monday that its profits could be slashed next year after reporting a 27-percent plunge in third-quarter earnings owing to rising fuel prices.

PARIS, Jan 31, 2008 (AFP) - Lawyers for President Nicolas Sarkozy and his girlfriend Carla Bruni asked a Paris court on Thursday to order budget airline Ryanair to pay damages for featuring a photo of the couple in an ad campaign.

LONDON, Jan 30, 2008 (AFP) - Britain's advertising watchdog rapped Irish low-cost airline Ryanair Wednesday for a flights promotion that showed a young woman dressed like a schoolgirl.

PARIS, Jan 30, 2008 (AFP) - President Nicolas Sarkozy and his girlfriend Carla Bruni are taking budget airline Ryanair to court over a photo of the couple featured in a recent ad campaign, their lawyer said Wednesday.

The photograph showed the couple smiling dreamily while a caption next to Bruni reads 'With Ryanair, my whole family can come to my wedding'.

PARIS, Jan 28, 2008 (AFP) - President Nicolas Sarkozy's spokesman on Monday assailed as 'unacceptable' an ad campaign for budget airline Ryanair featuring a picture of the French leader and his girlfriend Carla Bruni.

STOCKHOLM, Dec 17, 2007 (AFP) - Budget airline Ryanair has settled a lawsuit out of court brought by Sweden's ex-prime minister Goeran Persson after it used his picture in an advertisement without his consent, his lawyer said Monday.

MADRID, Dec 11, 2007 (AFP) - A Spanish consumers association on Tuesday condemned the Irish low-cost airline Ryanair over a calendar in which its stewardesses are pictured in bikinis.

BRUSSELS, Nov 28, 2007 (AFP) - The European Commission launched a state aid probe on Wednesday into the use by Irish low-cost airline Ryanair of Pau airport in southwestern France.

The Commission said it would in particular examine a contract with the Pau-Bearn Chamber of Commerce, which operates the airport, that sets out the conditions for Ryanair's use of the transport facility.

LONDON, Nov 19, 2007 (AFP) - Irish airline Aer Lingus said Monday it will appeal to European authorities to force low-cost rival and major shareholder Ryanair to sell its 29.4-percent stake following a failed takeover bid.

DUBLIN, Nov 5, 2007 (AFP) - Ryanair said Monday that net profit surged by almost 26 percent during its second quarter, as the Irish budget airline flew millions of additional passengers across Europe.

However the group warned that net profit would be 'significantly lower' during the third quarter compared with the same three-month period in 2006 owing to cheaper ticket prices.

LONDON, Oct 11, 2007 (AFP) - Irish low-cost airline Ryanair said Thursday it had lodged a formal complaint with the European Commission over recent fuel surcharge increases from Lufthansa, Air France-KLM and Swiss.

Last month, German flag carrier Lufthansa, Air France, KLM of the Netherlands and Swiss all said they would add the surcharges to their ticket prices in response to surging oil rates.

LONDON, Oct 10, 2007 (AFP) - Irish airline Aer Lingus threatened Wednesday to sue low-cost rival and major shareholder Ryanair to force the sale of its 29.4-percent stake following a failed takeover bid.

'Aer Lingus today confirmed it is to take legal proceedings to force Ryanair to dispose of its shareholding in Aer Lingus,' the partly-privatized carrier said in a statement.

However, Ryanair, its biggest single shareholder, refused the request in a separate release.

DUBLIN, Oct 3, 2007 (AFP) - Tony Ryan, the Irish co-founder of low-fares airline Ryanair, which helped to revolutionise air travel in Europe, died at his home on Wednesday aged 71, his family said.

Ryan, who suffered a lengthy, unspecified illness, had a family fortune worth an estimated 1.2 billion euros (1.6 billion dollars) and opened up cheap weekend breaks and short-haul flights to destinations across the continent.

'Our beloved Tony bore his illness with determined strength of character and great courage,' a family statement said.

MADRID, Sept 17, 2007 (AFP) - Irish budget carrier Ryanair launched Monday a cheeky ad campaign featuring Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero but later withdrew it after a government complaint.

The ad showed a smiling Zapatero asking whether Ryanair's 'offer for two million free seats is better than our baby cheques,' referring to the 2,500 euros (3,466 dollars) pay-outs his government is offering new parents.

'In face of the polemic it elicited, we spoke to Ryanair,' a Spanish government source told AFP on condition of anonymity.

ROME, Sept 15, 2007 (AFP) - An offer by Irish airline Ryanair to begin operating out of Milan's Malpensa airport in place of Italian carrier Alitalia will be 'considered', Italy's transport minister said in an interview Saturday.

'It would be mad not to examine an offer of a billion euros (1.4 billion dollars),' Alessandro Bianchi said in Saturday's edition of the Corriere della sera daily.

'I cannot judge this offer from a technical point of view but if a company as large as Ryanair decides to make such an investment, its offer must be considered.'

MILAN, Sept 13, 2007 (AFP) - Irish budget airline Ryanair said Thursday it planned to begin operating about 50 routes in and out of Milan's Malpensa airport vacated by the ailing Italian flagship Alitalia under a new business plan.

'We are ready to invest 840 million dollars (600 million euros) in Malpensa by deploying 12 Boeing 737-800s there by 2010, which would enable us to open 50 international and 10 national routes,' Alessia Viviani, Ryanair's marketing director for Italy, told AFP.

MADRID, Sept 9, 2007 (AFP) - Europe's two biggest low-cost airlines, Ryanair and easyJet, have stepped up their competition in Spain, forcing down fares and causing turbulence for the nation's domestic carriers like Iberia.

Last month Ireland-based Ryanair, Europe's largest budget carrier, said it would set up two more bases in the country by 2010, adding Valencia and Alicante to its existing hubs in Madrid and Gerona.

'There's still a lot of room to grow,' the company's director of marketing and sales in Spain, Maribel Rodriguez, told a news conference at the time.

LONDON, Aug 29, 2007 (AFP) - Irish low-cost airline Ryanair's Chief Executive Michael O'Leary on Wednesday called for BAA, the main operator of Britain's airports, to be broken up.

In a letter published in the Financial Times, O'Leary said that the 'break-up of this overcharging, inefficient, 'couldn't-care-less' monopoly will improve ... airports and is one of the few things that most airlines now agree on.'

BRUSSELS, Aug 28, 2007 (AFP) - Ryanair resumed on Tuesday taking reservations for Belgian flights after receiving guarantees minimising the impact of strikes at its Belgian base, the Irish low-cost carrier said.

On August 22, the carrier stopped taking reservations for flights to and from Charleroi airport, and demanded that authorities take action to avoid strikes after a stoppage in June grounded flights there.