The budget airline said on Tuesday its underlying pretax profit rose to £188.3 million ($300 million) in the year to the end of September, up from £43.7 million a year earlier, while revenues grew 11.5 percent to £2.97 billion.

Carolyn McCall, EasyJet’s Chief Executive, said the airline would pay its first ever dividend in 2012, in respect of the year ending September 2011.

“The time is right to set in place a formula to trigger a dividend payment in years when the company is profitable whilst at the same time ensuring that it retains a conservative capital structure,” said McCall.

“We therefore intend to commence the payment of an annual dividend based on a dividend cover of five times.” EasyJet’s founder and largest shareholder Stelios Haji-Ioannou, who had for some time urged the business to return cash to investors, said in a statement the move was “a welcome change” but added that he wanted the payout ratio “increased to 50 percent of earnings per share” over time.

Shares in the company, which have risen by a third in 2010, were 4 percent lower at 453.4 pence by 1015 GMT, valuing the business at around £2 billion.

“Medium-term guiding principles will be driving improvement in margins to achieve profit per seat of £5, increase the focus on business customers and the network and the planned increase in the fleet,” said Credit Agricole analyst Loic Sabatier.

The carrier, which was hit by £97.9 million of costs related to various disruptions during the year, said it hoped to add 24 planes to its fleet to take it up to 220 aircraft by September 2013, representing an average annual growth rate of 7 percent per annum in seats flown.

“From 2013-2015 we have flexibility in our fleet plan in that our growth can be anywhere between 4 and 8 percent,” said McCall. “We have built that flexibility into our strategy because no one knows what the economic outlook is going to be over next five years.” The carrier said fuel costs fell by £122.7 million during the year, while passenger numbers rose 7.9 percent to 48.8 million.