Budget carrier Ryanair will not be publishing their annual calendar of scantily-clad cabin crew for 2015, Michael O'Leary has announced.

The airline’s chief executive told Today FM that he plans to end the annual calendars which first launched in 2008 and have raised money for charity each year.

The calendars were, according to Mr O’Leary, an idea initially put forward by staff. 

"I think it was a great idea by the cabin crew,” he was reported as saying by AOL. “It genuinely did raise huge amounts of money for charity and we will struggle to replace it with something as good or as successful.”

Its inaugural issue featured female cabin crew members in bikinis - one posing in the cockpit, one sucking on a life jacket inflator tube, and yet another squeezing a soapy sponge on a runway.

But the calendars were criticised for being sexist and Mr O’Leary has said they were no longer in line with Ryanair’s new family-friendly image. Closer to home in Ireland, the calendars were criticised for not featuring any Irish women.

The UK’s Advertising Standards Agency also said Ryanair's "sexually suggestive" adverts featuring women in underwear to publicise the airline's 2012 cabin crew charity calendar were likely to cause "widespread offence".

At the time, Mr O'Leary hit back at the watchdog for allowing pictures of scantily-clad women in glossy magazines such as Vogue and Marie Claire but not in adverts for a charity calendar.

A Ryanair spokesman said it is still finalising its charity options for 2015, which will be revealed soon.

Mr O’Leary has also mentioned plans to get rid of the garish blue and yellow interiors that feature on the airline's planes in favour of “more subtle” colours and even photos of “happy, smiley people”.