Qantas staff will share a multi-million dollar bonus as the Australian flag carrier reported record annual profits.
Pre-tax profit rose by 18% to A$1.4 billion year-on-year, with both domestic and international operations improving their earnings.
Qantas attributed the improvement to strong demand for domestic travel, as well as efforts to improve its business, despite rising fuel costs.
An aggressive restructure recently has seen jobs slashed, the fleet reduced and the cutting of loss-making routes.
The improved financial performance will trigger a A$67 million bonus for 27,000 non-executive employees.
Qantas Group CEO Alan Joyce said the numbers “show a company that’s delivering across the board”.
The biggest contributor to the rise in profits was strong demand for domestic travel, but international travel also saw a 7% increase in earnings to almost A$400 million following structural changes such as the start of non-stop London-Perth flights.
Joyce said healthy demand across key sectors matched with improving levels of capacity was a positive sign for the year ahead.
The upbeat outlook comes despite expectations that fuel costs will rise further in 2019.
“We’re seeing healthy demand across key sectors matched with improving levels of capacity discipline, which is a positive sign for the year ahead,” Joyce said.
“This record result comes despite higher oil prices. We’re facing another increase to our fuel bill for FY19 and we’re confident that we will substantially recover this through a range of capacity, revenue and cost efficiency measures, in addition to our hedging programme.”
He added: “We’re very pleased to reward our people with a bonus for this fantastic result. It brings the total amount set aside for non-executive employees to over A$300 million over the past four years for their part in the group’s exceptional performance.”
A strong result was expected after Qantas reported a 17.9% jump in interim net profit in February.
Qantas is to upgrade six airport lounges in Auckland, Brisbane, Hobart, Sydney, Tamworth and Tokyo.