Ryanair chief executive Mr Michael O'Leary and non-executive director Mr Declan Ryan have raised €23.8 million apiece from the sale of shares in the low-fares airline.

Mr O'Leary and Mr Ryan, a member of the family who founded Ryanair, each sold four million shares at a price of €5.95 yesterday.

The eight million shares, representing around 1 per cent of the airline, were placed with a number of European financial institutions.

Davy Stockbrokers placed around half of the shares in Dublin with the balance placed in London by Morgan Stanley.

It is almost exactly a year since Mr O'Leary and the Ryan family last cashed in some of their shares, raising nearly €47 million each from the sale of some 14 million shares on June 12th last year.

Yesterday's sale follows the release of strong full-year results last week, showing that profits rose by 59 per cent to €239 million.

Although the shares initially fell to €5.68 in the wake of the results, they have recovered to around €6.00 in recent days as investor caution about the outlook for the airline has evaporated as the company has gone on the road to outline its strategy.

Mr O'Leary, who is due to get married later this year, held around 5.9 per cent of the airline prior to yesterday's sale. The latest disposal reduces his shareholding to around 5.4 per cent of the company.

He has now realised close to €200 million from selling shares every year since the airline floated in 1997, but he remains Ryanair's largest individual shareholder with around 41 million shares.

The Ryan family, which includes the airline's founder Dr Tony Ryan and his three sons, Cathal, Declan and Shane, have also been regular sellers of the shares. To date, they have raised more than €360 million from share sales.

When the airline floated five years ago, the family sold €61 million worth of shares and followed this with a €26 million sale in 1998 and another €175 million worth a year later.

Cathal and Declan Ryan separately sold €11.4 million of shares in 2000 while Dr Ryan sold €21.3 million in November 2001 and the family raised €47 million from last year's share sale.

Following the latest sale, the family's shareholding has been reduced to around 8.9 per cent with Shane Ryan holding 2.9 per cent, Cathal Ryan owning 2.57 per cent, Declan Ryan retaining 2 per cent and Dr Ryan in possession of 1.42 per cent.

Dealers said the ease with which the stock was placed pointed to continued strong demand for it.

This is particularly the case as further Ryanair stock is likely to come on the market at the end of June when share options held by up to 1,000 employees mature.

Although it announced a strong set of results last week, Ryanair warned that it was an exceptional performance and that yields would fall by up to 15 per cent this year.

Mr O'Leary warned that weaker sterling and further air fare reductions over the next 12 months would slow its rate of growth to around 10 per cent, but that it was still on track to become Europe's biggest airline.