When Tony Ryan and his family cashed in some of their chips when Ryanair floated on the Dublin and Nasdaq stock-markets, there were suggestions that they were doing so when the going was good and that the airline would struggle to deliver continued growth. Meanwhile, it was revealed that chief executive, Michael O'Leary, had received an £18 million bonus in the years before the initial float, seen by some as further evidence that the airline was making money for a small group, who would now have little incentive to drive it forward in future years.

Nothing could have been further from the truth. Ryanair has gone from strength-to-strength, delivering impressive growth and a soaring share price.

The combination of the booming Irish economy pushing up business at home and the translation of the low-fares formula to flights out of Stansted has underpinned continued profits growth. And a clever move to introduce a share option scheme for employees should go some way towards undoing the damage of the bitter industrial dispute, now the subject of an inquiry by Phil Flynn and Dan McAuley.

Now Ryanair is floating its shares on the London market and the main shareholders connected with the company are again raising some cash, while retaining very substantial stakes.

Their timing may be fortuitous, as many analysts now believe that international stock-markets have peaked. But investors will still be attracted to the prospect that the low-cost formula can continue to be rolled out from Stansted and Dublin, and eventually from elsewhere.

Ryanair is a company which knows what it is about and provided it can keep a grip on costs and chooses the right routes to fly, continued growth should be in prospect against a background of a fairly healthy European economy.