Also EI's record profits were only compared to their own standards. If their best ever profit was 5 EUR and then they made 8 EUR, they would be record profits. Does not necessarily mean its a decent performance.
If I remember rightly, EI's profit per passenger in 2007 was higher than that of FR.
I think its clear that Ryanair seems to have reached market saturation for their product, especially in Ireland and the UK. This is evident by their moving into bigger and more central airports like Birmingham, Edinburgh etc. which they previously said they'd never base at. I think Ryanair really need to open a base in Eastern Europe. Its hard to believe they still don't have any base east of Frankfurt-Hahn! With Centralwings on the brink of collapse and Sky Europe looking to be going the same way, there is surely an opportunity there. They need to become less reliant on the Irish and UK markets which have become saturated with LCCs and concentrate more on the developing markets in Eastern Europe where there is far more potential for growth. Russia also is a huge opportunity, however without an open skies agreement it is unlikely they would fly there, at least not with Irish registered planes!