Ryanair December bookings slightly ahead of year ago, CEO O'Leary says

VIENNA (Reuters) -Budget airline Ryanair's bookings for December, including the important Christmas period, are slightly ahead of where they were a year ago, with around 40% of seats remaining to be sold until the end of this year, CEO Michael O'Leary said on Tuesday.

The airline, Europe's largest by passenger numbers, said earlier this month it expected to fly 207 million passengers in the year to end-March, one million more than earlier forecast, after improved deliveries of aircraft from Boeing enabled it to add capacity in the first half and the current quarter.

"Bookings for Christmas are running strongly ahead. At the moment we're about half a percent ahead on forward bookings for where we were this time last year, and average fares at the moment are up sort of mid- to high-single-digits," O'Leary told a press conference at Vienna International Airport.

He added that Christmas and December were essentially interchangeable, though a Ryanair spokesperson clarified that he was referring to December as a whole.

"December is essentially Christmas. There's not a lot going on in the first two weeks of December," O'Leary said.

(Reporting by Francois Murphy. Editing by Jan Harvey and Mark Potter)