Sir Richard Branson has praised staff at Virgin Atlantic for overcoming "every imaginable obstacle" to bring the airline back into profit.
The carrier soared back into the black, making a pre-tax profit of £15.7m for the year to the end of April.
It represented a remarkable change of fortunes for the company, which suffered a pre-tax loss of £92.6m for 2001/2002 and was achieved against the backdrop of the Iraq war and the Sars outbreak.
Passenger numbers fell slightly - down from 4.08 million in 2001/2002 to 3.86 million in 2002/2003.
Sir Richard said: "Despite having almost every imaginable obstacle thrown at us, I am immensely proud that our team at Virgin Atlantic made a profit.
"Their success has been achieved in the face of testing market conditions and is a result of our strong load factors, which now even exceed those of low cost operators.
"Good performances by our cargo and holiday businesses and a tight control of costs also helped all group activities."
But he warned that the airline industry still had tough times ahead.
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