Ryanair is planning to accelerate its fleet growth in 2018/19 to take advantage of opportunities created by European legacy carriers restricting.

As part of its financial results for the full year to 31 March 2017, the airline revealed it has begun a fleet review with Boeing and will extend 10 of its planned lease returns in these years and add “selectively” to its current order “where Boeing may have some delivery opportunities over the next 24 months”.

“As legacy competitors in Italy, Germany, Romania, and Poland undergo deep restructuring, the scale of our airport growth negotiations is accelerating,” the airline said.

“We are aware of the need to have additional short haul aircraft to respond quickly as these unique growth opportunities arise.”

Ryanair also said that it expects Ryanair Sun to “become Poland’s No.1 charter airline”. To be launched in summer 2018 with five aircraft, Ryanair plans to treble this to 15 by summer 2019.

The news came as part of a solid year for Ryanair, in which it posted a rise in total passengers to 120 million, up from 106.4 million in 2015/16.

Despite this increase, revenue dipped slightly to €6.54bn from €6.65bn, while profit after tax dipped to €1.24bn from €1.32bn.