European low-cost airline easyJet retained its pretax profit growth forecast of 40-50 percent this year despite recent travel woes, its chief executive said.

Andrew Harrison told German weekly magazine WirtschaftsWoche that flights had largely returned to normal since Thursday, following a week when airlines had cancelled flights as security was tightened after UK police said they had foiled a plot to blow up trans-atlantic airliners.

Harrison reiterated the airline would increase pretax profit to GBP114 million pounds (USD$214.5 million) this year.

He said the airline would double its profit margin to 15 percent in 2008 and earn at least GBP4 (USD$7.50) per passenger.

Launched by entrepreneur Stelios Haji-Ioannou in 1995, easyJet floated in London in 2000, bought the low-cost carrier Go in 2002 and has since grown rapidly, with around 170 planes expected in the air by 2008.

Harrison also told the magazine that easyJet, Europe's second-largest budget carrier after Ryanair, aimed to increase its market share to 10 percent in five years from 6 percent currently.