The company said the year to the end of March had been another successful period of growth.

Turnover increased by 23 per cent to £429m, driven by further expansion of its scheduled airline operations. However, it said this significant growth was partly at the expense of profitability as Jet2.com expanded its route network from 114 to 133 routes.

Profit before tax amounted to £11.8m, compared to a loss the previous year of £3.6m.

In a statement, the company said that while summer 2008 trading remained very encouraging, the board had concluded that it was not appropriate to pay a final dividend given both the current economic climate and trading performance for the year to March 31 2008.

Jet2.com, the group's low-cost airline, continued its expansion in 2007/8 with the addition of 19 city and sun routes principally from Manchester and Leeds.

Passenger volumes grew 32 per cent to 4 million reflecting the continued strong customer demand for flying with Jet2.com
Following its launch in February 2007, more than 34,000 holidaymakers travelled with Jet2holidays.com, the group's tour operator, in its first year of operation.

The company said: "We believe that there is an opportunity to significantly grow this segment of our aviation business by packaging attractive hotels with Jet2.com scheduled flights, offering flexible holidays to a wide range of destinations.

"Consistent with our aim to fly fuller planes, we also see Jet2holidays.com as a means of selling last minute flight inventory. This scheduled flight based activity will be supplemented by more specialist trips as exemplified by a series of New York shopping trips launched for this winter.

"Looking forward, Jet2.com will continue to focus its growth on the leisure sector of the airline market. The continuing development of its in-house IT capabilities is recognised as being particularly important to ensure that both its scheduled flights and holiday offerings meet the demands of its growing customer base.

"The group also intends to work more closely with the travel trade in making its flight and holiday offerings more accessible to all forms of distribution."