Airline BMI today hailed a major overhaul of its strategy for helping to revive profits at a time of soaring fuel costs.
BMI, which operates on the Dublin-Heathrow route, posted pre-tax profits of £10m for 2005, compared with £2.6m a year earlier.
While passenger numbers were static at 10.5 million, BMI said this reflected a focus on flying higher-yield business passengers and the more efficient use of its fleet of aircraft.
It faced a fuel bill of £37.5 million in 2005, but this was in part recovered by passenger surcharges as the group - home to low-cost airline bmibaby as well as full-service and regional operations - turned operating losses of £3.2m in 2004 into profits of £5.5m last year.
BMI chairman Sir Michael Bishop, who has a controlling stake of more than 50% in the group, said the figures for 2005 demonstrated good progress.
Under chief executive Nigel Turner, the company has set itself up to focus its main BMI operation on business traffic while at the same time managing availability of the lower-yield traffic.
It also completed a fleet rationalisation which enabled its three divisions to operate a single fleet, while it rationalised engineering activities, outsourced heavy maintenance and developed more e-booking services, as part of a wider drive to improve efficiency levels.
