The bmi Group reported a pre-tax profit of £10m for 2005, a 284% increase on the £2.6m profit made in 2004.
Turnover rose by 4.7% from £830m in 2004 to £869m last year and the operating profit rose from £2.6m to £5.5m.
bmi chairman Sir Michael Bishop said the figures showed "good progress."
He added: "We beat expectations last year and bmi's strategic focus created further substantial improvements in 2005.
"Our concentration on higher yields, better resource allocation and cost control has delivered a good foundation for future growth.”
Sir Michael said the launch of bmi's first long haul routes, from Heathrow to Mumbai and Riyadh, marked an "important step forward in the group's development."
He said bmi planned to extend its long haul destinations from Heathrow with the launch in May of a three times a week service to Jeddah.
Worldspan signs deals with major US carriers
GDS Worldspan has signed five year content distribution deals with American Airlines and Continental Airlines.
Each deal gives the GDS full access to all the carriers' fares, including their web fares.
David Cush, senior vp global sales for American Airlines, said: "This agreement achieves American's important business objective of decreasing its distribution costs, a critical factor for American going forward as we continue to drive towards more efficient operations throughout our business."
Rakesh Gangwal, chairman and ceo of Worldspan, said he was "delighted" to sign the deals as travel agents had "repeatedly emphasised that comprehensive content is critical to their business model."
AirPlus and UBS team up
AirPlus International, which provides business travel payments solutions, has entered into a strategic partnership with Swiss bank UBS.
The two companies will offer Swiss corporates a "complete payment and cost analysis solution for corporate travel" which will enable them to analyse all travel spend.
They will also receive detailed management information from the AirPlus Information Manager for negotiations with airlines and hotels.
Spencer Hanlon, managing director of AirPlus, said: "UBS is an ideal partner to support our customers with the optimisation of their business travel management in Switzerland. "The partnership is important to our continued growth around the world and will critically move us toward our goal of becoming Europe's number One in business travel payment by 2008."