The £90.1 million profit figure also took into account a £10.9 million charge for foreign exchange revaluation losses, compared with £1.3 million in 2016.
Dart Group confirmed that the profit performance in the year primarily reflected its continuing investment in its leisure travel business, which combines both the airline and the operator.
The group said demand for Jet2holidays package holidays continued to grow as Jet2holidays took 1.73 million customers on such holidays in the past year, compared to 1.22 million in 2016 – an increase of 42%, representing 49% of overall flown passengers.
The average price of a package holiday was £617 compared with £616 in 2016. As such, revenue in the group’s leisure travel business increased by 24% to £1,565.8 million.
Load factors were consistently more than 90% and more than 41% of the package holidays were sold on an all-inclusive basis; “particularly attractive for times of economic uncertainty”.
Regarding the new bases, group executive chairman Philip Meeson said in the financials statement: “In July and September 2016, we were delighted to announce Birmingham and London Stansted airports as our 8th and 9th UK operating bases.
“Operations at both commenced on March 30 2017, providing customers with a combined 58 new routes to Mediterranean and Canary Island holiday destinations.
“We believe both bases have great potential for our holiday business, further strengthening our position in the Midlands and enabling us to serve, for the first time, customers in North & East London and the East of England.”
The report added that Jet2holidays’ Resort Flight Check-In service, introduced at many hotels in summer 2016, had proven to be “extremely popular” and hadbeen expanded to more than 180 hotels for summer 2017.
Elsewhere in the financial report, Dart Group announced that from the financial year starting April 1 2018, the group will implement a "discretionary colleague profit sharing scheme" for those who do not already participate in a performance related bonus or commission scheme and who have been continuously employed for at least 12 months.
The profit share will be calculated at the rate of 5% of profit before taxation, excluding foreign currency revaluations and other exceptional items, for the respective businesses, and will be paid in proportion to each colleague’s basic salary.
Meeson said: “Both our leisure travel and distribution and logistics businesses have made satisfactory starts to the new financial year.
“Given visibility on current forward bookings and the recent successful launch of our new operating bases at Birmingham and London Stansted Airports, the board expects to meet current market expectations of underlying profit before taxation for the year ending 31 March 2018.
“Looking further ahead, there remains considerable uncertainty around Brexit negotiations and the effect these could have, both on our freedom to fly and on our customers’ ability to travel to our leisure destinations.
“This is unsettling; however, we believe that the UK government recognises the importance of aviation services, and similarly, European countries appreciate the value that British tourists bring to their respective economies.
“Therefore, for the long-term, we remain confident in the resilience of our leisure travel business and we are encouraged by the increasing proportion of customers choosing our great value package holidays, which are not easily replicated by non-specialists, and have proven particularly popular in challenging economic times.”
