Flybe back to black
Flybe has returned to profitability after carrying a record number of passengers and achieving record load factors in the year to the end of March.
It made a pre-tax profit for the year of £8.1 million, compared to a loss of £41.1m in the previous year.
The low-cost carrier said it had made profit improvement across all areas of the business.
Chief executive Saad Hammad said: "2013/14 marks the rebirth of Flybe!
"We implemented a turnaround plan to stabilise the business and then successfully raised over £150m net to strengthen our balance sheet and drive sustainable profitable growth.
The return to profitability is a great step forwards. This enables us to start implementing our twin-engine strategy of growing our UK branded business and our white label operations across Europe.
"We have made a good start to FY15, in line with our expectations.
"We are moving to build on our early success. We have a plan and we have the firepower. The Group is now well-placed to become Europe’s best local airline."
An 11.1% growth in revenue under management to £864.4 million was driven by "significant" growth in white label revenue in Finland, where it operates a joint venture with Finnair.
In the UK, passenger numbers were up 6.9% to 7.7 million, despite a 1.4% reduction in its seat capacity. As a result, its load factor inched up to 69.5% from 64.1% the previous year.
Flybe increased its share of the UK regional market from 52.4% to 55.1%.
In March, the airline axed most of its routes from London Gatwick, after selling its take off and landing slots at the airport to easyJet.
Linsey McNeill
Editor Linsey McNeill has been writing about travel for more than three decades. Bylines include The Times, Telegraph, Observer, Guardian and Which? plus the South China Morning Post. She also shares insider tips on thetraveljournalist.co.uk
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