VIRGIN Atlantic Airways Ltd, the privately-owned British airline controlled by billionaire Richard Branson, said yesterday that a record number of business travelers sent annual pretax profit before one-off items up 38 percent.
The carrier posted a pretax profit for the 2007-2008 financial year of 60.9 million pounds (US$112.2 million), up from 44 million pounds a year earlier.
The result for the year to February 29 excluded a 32-million-pound charge relating to the settlement of a class action lawsuit over the price-fixing of fuel surcharges. Virgin and rival British Airways PLC admitted to colluding over fuel surcharges on long-haul flights between August 2004 and January 2006.
Sales increased 9.1 percent to 2.3 billion pounds.
Virgin credited a 22-percent increase in first and business class passengers for the rise in profit. The carrier said that it had continued to benefit from increasing numbers of premium fliers into the first quarter of this year as passengers shunned British Airways to avoid the problems at Heathrow's new Terminal 5, which BA uses. Terminal 5 had a disastrous opening in March, with flights canceled, luggage lost and enormous lines.
The company also said that its launch of a crop of new routes helped increase the total number of passengers it carried over the year to 5.7 million, a rise of 7.6 percent.