Flydubai profits nosedived 60% in 2015

Dubai's no-frills carrier flydubai said Wednesday its 2015 net profit stood at 100.7 million dirhams ($27.4 million), down 59.7 percent from the previous year, due to the strong dollar and route suspensions.

Total revenues increased 11 percent to 4.9 billion dirhams ($1.33 billion), with passenger numbers surging 25 percent to 9.04 million, it said in a statement.

But profits have come "under pressure attributable to a strong dollar (and) the challenging trading environment across the network," the government-owned company said.

Profit was also affected by "disruption resulting from the suspension of flights on some established routes and a large number of recently launched routes with a lead time required to reach maturity," flydubai said.

Among routes suspended due to unrest were flydubai's flights to destinations in war-torn Iraq and Yemen.

The carrier serves 90 destinations with a fleet of 50 Boeing 737 planes.