By Fatos Bytyci

TIRANA (Reuters) -Ryanair is seeing very strong demand across Europe and is “reasonably optimistic” about hitting its summer targets, Chief Executive Michael O’Leary said in an interview on Thursday.

He also praised Boeing for agreeing to deliver some jets earlier than scheduled, ending a run of delays that have curbed the airline’s growth rate.

“We’re seeing strong bookings through the peak summer months … The fares are holding up,” O’Leary said, adding that bookings were about 1% ahead of where they were at the same point last year.

He repeated a forecast from July that average fares were likely to rise by close to 7%, depending on close-in bookings for the remainder of the airline’s key second quarter, which ends on September 30.

There has been no sign of consumers

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