Flight Centre Travel Group began the financial year with high expectations, but has reported an underlying profit before tax of AUD289.1 mil lion, below its target and the previous year.
FCTG chairman Gary Smith attributes the 9.8% drop to a challenging fourth quarter, when tensions escalated in the Middle East during what would normally be the leisure businesses peak trading period. The group also, he says, faced ‘significant turbulence’ with geopolitical tensions, macroeconomic uncertainty and the well-documented volatility in the US.
. . . Locally
Things are more upbeat close to home, with FCTG New Zealand md Victoria Courtney saying its Kiwi business delivered positive growth for FY25, especially on the corporate front. “The corporate arm of our New Zealand business delivered a standout result in FY25,” she says. “Both FCM and Corporate Traveller New Zealand have been successful in securing new business, and achieving high retention rates, contributing to a record performance for both brands.” Highlighting the heightened demand for luxury travel, Courtney adds that Travel Associates New Zealand continues to contribute to the region’s strong performance.
. . . Record TTV
The big positive out of FY25 was FCTG seeing record total transaction value of AUD24.5 billion. Smith notes it was the 26th time FCTG has surpassed the prior year’s TTV results.
. . . Outlook
While FCTG is yet to provide its FY26 market guidance, global ceo Graham ‘Skroo’ Turner says it expects cyclical challenges that affected the FY25 results to continue to impact bookings and travel patterns in early 2026. “While these challenges are likely to be short term, FY26 1H UPBT is expected to be reasonably flat given a degree of ongoing volatility in the Q1 and the comparative strong FY25 2Q result.” Accelerated profit growth is expected in H2 and Turner notes that some early signs of stabilisation are starting to emerge, including improvement in consumer confidence, stronger TTV growth and a rise in leisure enquiry and web traffic
