Australia's Qantas Airways today announced a 4.3% drop in full-year net profits but voiced cautious optimism for the industry after its battering in the financial crisis.
Net profits were $112m, down from $117m a year earlier, while underlying pre-tax profits rose three-fold to $377m after last year's massive cost-cutting.
'While global trading conditions remained challenging, they continued to improve, and the Qantas Group has delivered a strong result, more than tripling its full year profit year-on-year,' CEO Alan Joyce said.
'International demand and yield across the business and leisure sectors continue to improve and domestic business demand is also strengthening,' he added.
Joyce said all sectors of the group, including budget offshoot Jetstar, were profitable, and that the company expects to increase capacity in the first half of next year.
But Qantas did not pay a dividend to shareholders for the second year running, and declined to forecast future profits 'given the volatility and uncertainty of the aviation market'.
Joyce said the company, which pledged to dramatically slash costs as profits dived 88% last year, was seeing 'encouraging signs' as freight and premium travel improve.
The Qantas group controls about two-thirds of the domestic market and some 30% of international passenger movements in Australia.
Qantas last year vowed to trim about $1 billion in spending and later axed first class from all but a handful of routes as it sought to recover from the global crisis, which hit freight and business and holiday travel.
Joyce said a 'high level of uncertainty' remained but conditions had vastly improved since the slowdown, despite renewed jitters over growth in Europe, China and the US.
