DUBAI, Feb. 20 (Xinhua) -- Budget carrier FlyDubai said in a statement Wednesday that it ended 2018 with a loss of 43.5 million U.S. dollars.
The company added that the same year's revenues increased to 1.7 billion dollars.
"Our performance in 2018 was impacted largely due to increasing fuel costs, rising interest rates and unfavorable currency exchange movements," said the company's Chief Financial Officer Francois Oberholzer.
"Following the results of the first half of 2018, we continued to focus on further efficiency programs across the business and these have resulted in a better second half," he said.
He added that these programs are expected to result in an improvement in their financial performance.
FlyDubai CEO Ghaith Al-Ghaith said the company expanded its network by increasing flight frequencies on existing routes and adding new routes, which aimed at supporting growth.
In 2017, the Dubai government-owned company made 1.5 billion dollars in revenue, earning a narrow profit of 10 million dollars that year.
