RYANAIR HAS THIS morning reported a third quarter loss of €35 million, although the airline says this is “in line with previous guidance”.

A fall in fare prices and a weaker sterling were both blamed for the loss by Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary.

However, the number of passengers flying with the airline grew to 18 million, compared to 17.3 million in 2012.

Markets have reacted positively to the move, with the airline performing well in early morning trading.

The airlines’s full year profit guidance of €510 million will also remain unchanged.

“As full year traffic will be slightly stronger, and our focus on cost control delivers a 4% fall in Q4 (excluding fuel) unit costs,” O’Leary said.

We are now confident that the full year net profit outturn will finish in the range of €500m to €520m as previously guided.

Today’s announcement follows the first weekend where the airline returned to allocated seating.

“The uptake of reserved and allocated seats has grown significantly in the last weeks of January, and it now appears that sales of reserved/allocated seats will exceed the revenue loss from cutting airport and bag fees,” O’Leary noted this morning.

This should enable Ryanair to deliver strong growth in ancillary revenues in FY15 during which we hope these customer service improvements will deliver stronger forward bookings and load factors.

The airline recently announced a partnership with technology giant Google, as well as an aim to target travelling parties with group bookings.

Column: The Ryanair and Google Partnership – what’s in it for us? >

Airline food: Ryanair deny “mutinous” passengers raided food trolley on delayed flight >

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