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.