Ebookers.com, the online travel agency, yesterday showed evidence of surviving the dot.com meltdown as it announced first quarter sales up 35% on the previous quarter - and double those of a year ago.
Shares in the company, which recently listed on the London stock exchange at 99.5p, rose up 23.5p to 150p.
Dinesh Dhamija, the chief executive,said: "Our main priority is going to be cost control. We are going to focus on profitability. Growth comes second."
Ebookers would have positive cash flow in the fourth quarter of this year or by early 2002, and profitability would follow shortly after. The com pany, which raised $45m (£31m) from European institutional investors last July, has $43.8m cash in the bank.
The firm reported a pretax loss of $11.9m for the period, compared to a $10m loss last year, and sales of $48.7m. Site traffic also rose, to 10.1m this quarter from 7.6m in the fourth quarter of last year.
"We will continue to remain highly focused on reducing expenditure while maintaining cost-effective growth, with cash burn falling to under $1.5m per month in the second half," Mr Dhamija said.
The company is looking to move its administrative base to India to reduce costs, though without job losses, and plans to extend its services to business travellers.
