Flight Centre yesterday reported disappointing results for the first quarter of the 2005 / 2006 year. Chairman Graham Turner said net profit before tax had fallen 21 per cent to $23 million.
“Earlier this year, we stated we would be disappointed if we could not achieve profit growth in line with TTV growth,” Mr Turner said.
“Currently, we are not achieving this target but it is early days in the financial year and we cannot provide further guidance at this time.”
“It is obviously very early days in 2005/06 but initial results are disappointing,” he said.
“Travel,” Mr Turner said, “you would hardly say it’s booming.”
While leisure and corporate sales were strong, overide payments were lower than expected from key airline partners. Although this comes at a time when Flight Centre has been aggressively pursuing overseas acquisitions, most geographic regions performed in line with expectations.
Turner was asked about shareholder disquiet over some executives remuneration in a disppointing year: “Some rewards,” he said more diplomatically, “seemed to be out of line with the company’s achievements in a challenging year.”
