Flight Centre profits down amid challenging environment

Flight Centre profits down amid challenging environment

Flight Centre’s annual profit fell 4.7 percent amid airlines’ price war, falling demand after Brexit vote, Zika travel warnings.

The challenging global environment has been attributed to the travel group’s net profit of $244.6 million for the year to June 30, down on last year’s $256.6 million result.

Flight Centre founder Graham Turner is battling “challenging” headwinds as the price war between the big airlines chipped away at its margins and computer upgrades and underperformance in India and Asia weighed on its earnings.

In May, the company warned conditions “remain volatile in some markets” such as the UK and the US, where demand has been dented by travel warnings for regions affected by the Zika Virus and the instability in Europe.

“There is a degree of uncertainty within our key economies at the start of the new year and it’s impossible to predict future conditions,” Turner said.

Staying positive, Turner said he sees improvement opportunities within the businesses and growth prospects globally.

“We will be disappointed if we don’t improve on our [financial year 2016] performance.”

TTV grew $1.7 billion to $19.3 billion with the increase across all countries and regions, meaning that on average the group sold $50 million worth of travel every day during the year.

The company announced a final dividend of 92 cents, for a total dividend of $1.52, the same total dividend as 2015.

Email the Travel Weekly team at traveldesk@travelweekly.com.au

    Latest comments
    1. gee what a surprise. Not a lot of dollar commission on $700 return fares to USA or $800 return fares to Europe. Doesn’t matter what the commission rate is, especially when taxes taken out of equation. Airlines should wake up & reduce flights or do more codeshare, rather than dump seats at silly prices, otherwise public will then think the new low prices are now the benchmark & many won’t travel unless they get the loss leader fares, which are never that plentiful, but many punters think, a price means whole aircraft. Don’t know how many enquiries we’ve had asking about sub $1000 & sub $800 return fares to USA at Xmas. The public don’t get it.

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