Travel agent ebookers yesterday cut 15% of its workforce, closing 10 shops across Europe and reducing back office staff in India as part of its drive to move more operations on to the internet.

The company, which yesterday announced its second consecutive quarterly profit, is cutting 270 jobs including 70 positions in New Delhi. It hopes the move, which will affect its ebookers, Travelbag and Bridge The World stores, will save £2.5m this year.

Chairman and chief executive Dinesh Dhamija said closures would include a store in Tottenham Court Road, London, that he set up with his wife in 1992.

As for the fate of the remaining dozen or so stores in the ebookers portfolio, he said: "If they make profits they will never be closed down. I would like to be a pure online play but ... I am not going to throw away profit."

The company, which has websites in 13 European countries, yesterday reported a pretax profit of £1.3m for the three months to end March, up from £405,000 in the previous three months and a loss of £4.86m in the first quarter of 2003.

Turnover almost doubled to £160m while an increase in sales of products such as holidays, hotel rooms, car rentals and insurance helped the group maintain margins at 13.2% despite tougher pricing on airline tickets, especially for short-haul routes.

The first three months of the year are traditionally a strong period for travel agents and there was a fierce marketing battle, with high profile campaigns from Travelocity and Expedia to grab market share.

To bolster its position, ebookers spent £5m but Mr Dhamija insisted that the company more than held its own.

Ebookers said the second quarter of the year started well with passenger numbers up almost 60% in April compared with last year. House broker Evolution Beeson Gregory raised its pre-tax profit forecast for the year to £12.5m from £10m.