Ryanair can boast of another on-time performance. Its annual general meeting with shareholders took off promptly at 11 a.m. and its chairman, Mr David Bonderman, efficiently turned the proceedings around in 25 minutes.

The 30 or so shareholders who had travelled to Dublin Airport to catch the meeting were free to choose their own seats. There wasn't much of a scramble as there was some spare capacity onboard. The only obvious departure from Ryanair's lean low-cost business model was the availability of free tea and coffee before and after the meeting.

Mr Bonderman and Ryanair's chief executive, Mr Michael O'Leary, reassured everyone that the model remains very much intact.

The chairman said that, while pockets of turbulence created by the war in Iraq, SARS and the general economic downturn had been challenging, Ryanair had uniquely weathered the storm.

Profits increased by 60 per cent to just under €240 million, it had ordered more aircraft from Boeing, opened 50 new routes and two new bases in continental Europe, carried nearly 16 million passengers and successfully bought and integrated KLM's low-cost subsidiary Buzz.

"We improved our customer service and our punctuality is probably the best in Europe consistently, the number of passenger complaints has dropped dramatically and the numbers of bags lost are at an all-time low," Mr Bonderman said.

The airline probably won't switch off the seat-belt sign just yet, as it braces itself in case it has to ground some flights on foot of developments in Brussels.

Ryanair expects the European Commission to announce the outcome of its inquiry into its deal at Belgium's Charleroi Airport, which in Ryanair-speak is Brussels south, before the year-end. It appears confident the outcome will not hurt Ryanair's progress and that it will continue to ferry millions of passengers to secondary airports across Europe.

Mr O'Leary played down the concerns about the impact of the Brussels ruling. "We are in one of those temporary periods at the moment where some are saying the EU decision on Charleroi will end low-fares aviation as we know it. We expect a positive result from the Commission. I think it will issue guidelines for publicly owned secondary airports but nothing is going to change the Ryanair business model."