Virgin Atlantic turned its first profit in four years and promptly paid a dividend of more than £87 million.
After three years racking up £233 million of losses, the company jointly owned by the interests of Sir Richard Branson and Delta Air Lines reported an underlying pre-tax profit of £14.4 million.
That represents a turnaround in its first full year under the leadership of Craig Kreeger, the chief executive brought in from American Airlines, from a £51 million loss in 2013.
The results, on marginally lower revenues and passenger numbers, allowed the airline to pay the dividend. Much of that will come from the £39 million Virgin Atlantic raised from the sale of its stake in Nats, the part-privatised air traffic control group.
Virgin Atlantic is 49 per cent-owned by Delta after a $360 million deal in 2013. It was unclear last night how much of the dividend payout is going to Delta and how much to the interests of Sir Richard, who founded the airline 30 years ago. Virgin Atlantic declined to comment.
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Mr Kreeger said that last year had been all about returning the airline to profitability, with the decision to shed routes that were neither profitable nor strategically important to an airline that has become almost exclusively a transatlantic carrier.
The chief executive is predicting that he will break Virgin Atlantic’s all-time best profit figure of £99 million in 1999 within four years. He said: “Getting to £14 million is a big step from where we have been.”