Michael O’Leary, Ryanair’s chief executive, said the move represented a halving of its so-called T fares, the cheapest on Ryanair flights, which represent about half of the seats sold per flight.

He said: “If passengers are booking ahead of the 80% seat target, we will close off the cheap seats. If we are booking behind it, we will open up more cheap fares.”

O’Leary said the primary motive for the sale was to stimulate faltering demand rather than drive rivals out of business. He said high oil prices would have a far greater impact on financially weak airlines than another cut-price seat offer.

“Ultimately it is oil and the operating losses that will force some of these guys to the wall,” said O’Leary.

Ryanair flights break even when the planes are 80% full and O’Leary admitted the airline was having to “dump” fares in order to fill its planes, amid weakening demand for seats.

“We will dump the price to wherever it needs to be in order to get to 80%,” O’Leary vowed.

Ryanair is heading for its first loss in 20 years due to high fuel costs, driven by the global oil spike, and weakening passenger demand.

The Dublin-based carrier said it would plunge from a profit last year of €439m (£347m) to a loss of up to €60m if the cost of keeping planes in the air stayed at record levels.

The profit warning was compounded by an admission that the sales outlook was weaker than expected and a planned 5% fares increase would have to be reversed - underlined by today’s sale.

The carrier is grounding 20 planes this winter in order to conserve costs, a move that is being replicated across the industry with a 7% capacity cut among all airlines - equivalent to nearly 60m fewer seats - taking place in the final quarter of 2008.

Some experts have warned fares will rise as a result, but low-budget carriers such as Ryanair, whose business model is predicated on the pile-high sell-cheap principle, are under pressure to slash ticket prices due to the wider economic downturn.

O’Leary said he wanted a recent fall in the oil price from $147 per barrel to around $120 per barrel to be reversed, in order to ensure Europe’s most cash-strapped airlines were not bailed out by banks willing to take a risk on an industry revival.

“If airlines get a break in the oil price, some of them will get financing from some idiot. The more expensive oil is, the faster we roll up the loss-making companies that are not going to survive anyway.”

O’Leary confirmed plans to launch hand luggage-only flights in the autumn. The experimental ban on checked-in bags will take place on four routes: Dublin to Cork, London to Glasgow, Rome to Milan Bergamo and Frankfurt Hahn to Berlin.

About four out of 10 Ryanair passengers travel without bags since the airline introduced bag check-in fees. Ryanair will make a few flights per day hand luggage-only but will not ban checked-in luggage entirely on the four routes.

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