By Fatos Bytyci
TIRANA (Reuters) -Ryanair is seeing strong demand across Europe with bookings ahead of last year, and is "reasonably optimistic" about hitting its summer targets, Chief Executive Michael O'Leary said in an interview on Thursday.
He also praised Boeing for agreeing to deliver some jets earlier than scheduled, ending a run of delays that have curbed Ryanair's growth rate.
"We're seeing strong bookings through the peak summer months ... The fares are holding up," O'Leary said, adding that
bookings were about 1% ahead of the same point last year.
He repeated a forecast from July that average fares were likely to recover almost all of a 7% decline seen in the July-September quarter last year, when Ryanair was hit by consumer caution and a dispute with some online travel agents.
Hitting the summer target will depend on close-in bookings for the remainder of the airline's key second quarter, which ends on September 30, he said.
There has been no sign of consumers changing their plans due to heatwaves this summer, O'Leary added. But he warned that U.S. tariffs would ultimately act as a drag on global growth.
"I think everybody is cautious at the moment, and we're right to be cautious," he said.
Boeing, which is due to deliver the final 29 aircraft of Ryanair's current order of 737 MAX jets this winter, has agreed to deliver seven jets in August and seven in September, ahead of an earlier-agreed schedule.
"Boeing are doing a terrific job," O'Leary said.
He was speaking in Tirana, where he announced a doubling of capacity to four million passengers per year with the basing of three aircraft at the airport from next April. He described Albania as a hidden jewel of the Adriatic.
SWEDISH GROWTH
Ryanair, Europe's largest airline by passengers, also announced plans to increase capacity serving Sweden by 25% for this winter, adding eight new routes, after the country scrapped its aviation tax at the beginning of last month.
That will add to pressure on local rivals such as SAS and Norwegian Air.
Ryanair Chief Marketing Officer Dara Brady called on Sweden also to freeze airport charges and potentially offer additional incentives for growth, saying this could allow Ryanair to double its Swedish traffic by 2030.
"The market is well capable of growing significantly here over the next number of years," Brady told a news conference.
(Additional reporting by Niklas Pollard in Stockholm. Writing by Conor Humphries. Editing by Tomasz Janowski and Mark Potter)
