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Ryanair to cut Stansted capacity and ‘pivot’ away from UK — BREXIT WATCH

That could have a direct impact on the City of Derry Airport where Ryanair now flies 9 times a week to Stansted.

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Ryanair now serves five destinations in Ireland from London Stansted including Dublin, Knock, Cork, Kerry and Shannon.

Despite lower fares, Ryanair still managed to rake in £214million profit over the three months, thanks to an 11% jump in passenger numbers.

EasyJet will also be weighing up what they want to do, and they have said that they’re “looking forward into a hard and uncertain economic and operating environment”.

Britain is a major market for the airline, accounting for about a quarter of all sales.

Europe’s largest discount airline, which had campaigned for the United Kingdom to stay in the European Union with newspaper ads and in-flight announcements, will cut back on frequencies at London Stansted, its biggest base, this winter.

Ryanair added that it was unable to predict what effect Brexit would have on its business or aviation regulation.

In the near term, Ryanair said it would brace itself for a weaker pound and downward pressure on fares until the end of 2017 at least. However, in the longer term, there may be opportunities for the airline if some of its U.K.-registered competitors are no longer permitted to operate internal European Union routes or have to divest majority ownership of EU-registered airlines.

The company reported a 4% rise in net income year-on-year to €256 million (£215 million), narrowly missing analysts’ estimates of €260 million, according to a poll from Bloomberg.

The company announced profits before tax for the three months to June of €286.5m (£239m), up three per cent on last year’s €277.8m.

Chief executive officer Michael O’Leary said: “This modest 4% increase in Q1 profit to €256m is in line with previous guidance”.

He said: ‘All of the clouds on the horizon suggest there are significant risks to the downside in the second half of the year’. Shares in the company rose 5.7%.

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Ryanair now expects to carry about 117 million customers over the full year, up 10% compared with last year and 1 million more than it previously thought.

Ryanair Boeing 737-800