The airline also had revenues grow by 13 percent to its strongest performance in five years.
Virgin Atlantic Cargo reported Wednesday its revenue grew 13 percent year-over-year in 2018 to 222 million pounds ($290 million), which was its strongest revenue performance in five years.
The company also experienced a 6 percent annual growth in volume to more than 244,000 tonnes, its best result since 2010. Virgin Atlantic Cargo said it achieved new records for tonnage from the U.K. and U.S. as well as on direct services to Delhi and Los Angeles and had a 50 percent year-over-year increase in pharmaceuticals volume.
“We achieved particularly strong growth from June onwards, resulting in the best Q4 performance in our 34-year history, with positive contributions from across our network and partnerships,” said Dominic Kennedy (pictured above), managing director, in a statement.
Virgin Australia launched a daily Sydney-Hong Kong service in July and Virgin Atlantic introduced twice-daily Johannesburg services in October, the latter of which contributed to a 15 percent year-over-year increase in volumes on the route and a 22 percent growth to Heathrow-Johannesburg revenues, the company said.
The airline in 2019 plans to expand capacity with the arrival of four Airbus A250-1000 aircraft and add a new route for cargo to Tel Aviv.