UK travel company Thomas Cook said it was on track to grow in its current financial year after seeing an encouraging start to bookings for next summer and as it benefits from a turnaround plan for its German airline Condor.
The company added, however, it would take a "cautious" approach to the coming year after security issues in Turkey meant it spent 2016 moving flight and hotel capacity away from there and into Spanish destinations.
Making those changes dragged on earnings, and for the 12 months to September 30, it posted underlying operating profit of £308m.
This was better than analysts' forecast of £296m and broadly flat on the £310m it made last year.
Thomas Cook said its confidence in its future profitability meant the board was recommending a dividend of 0.5 pence per share for the 2016 full-year, in line with guidance it gave last year that it would make its first payout for five years in 2017.
"We are confident that our strategy for profitable growth will help us to achieve a full year operating result in line with current market expectations," the company's chief executive Peter Fankhauser said.
For next year, Thomas Cook said bookings for the summer, when it makes all its profit, were ahead across all its markets, while winter bookings from the UK were up 2%.
Winter bookings from Germany were down 5%, however, as holidaymakers there decided not to travel to Turkey.
Thomas Cook also said Condor, its German airline, continued to drag on its performance due to weak demand and overcapacity in the airline market.
It said it was implementing a turnaround plan to try to improve profits by focusing the airline away from short-haul flights to longer-haul flights.
