Etihad Airways, the national airline of the UAE, has announced its strongest annual financial results to date, with a net profit of $103 million on total revenues of $9.02 billion.

The performance, which marked the airline’s fifth consecutive year of net profitability, also saw earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) of $259 million, and earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, amortization and rentals (EBITDAR) of $1.4 billion, representing 16 percent of total revenues.

Etihad Airways President and CEO James Hogan said: “Our mandate is to build a sustainably profitable airline. A fifth year of net profits, with our best annual financial performance to date, shows that we are delivering against that goal. Our profitability clearly demonstrates the success of our business strategy, based on organic growth boosted by our partnerships.

As well as operating profitability, we are building enterprise value across the airline and its many additional business streams.”

Etihad Airways’ financial statements are audited by Deloitte and are in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS).

Etihad Airways carried a total of 17.6 million passengers in 2015, an increase of 18.9 percent year-on-year.

Revenue passenger kilometers (RPKs), which measure passenger journeys, increased 21.3 percent to 83.2 billion, while available seat kilometers (ASKs), which represent capacity, grew by 21.0 percent to 104.8 billion.

In total, the airline operated 97,400 flights covering 467 million km. The average network-wide seat load factor was 79.4 percent for 2015, compared with 79.2 percent in 2014.

Six new destinations were added to Etihad Airways’ global network — Kolkata, Madrid, Hong Kong, Entebbe, Edinburgh and Dar es Salaam — and capacity increased on 16 existing routes with bigger aircraft, more frequency and improved seat occupancy.

Etihad Airways’ fleet increased by 11 aircraft to a total of 121 at year end. Its fleet has an average age of 5.8 years.