EUROPE'S largest regional airline Flybe has recorded solid results for the fourth quarter of the 2015/16.

The carrier, which operates 27 services from Southampton, carried 1.8 million passenger in the three months to March - matching last year’s performance.

Flybe were operating at 68 per cent capacity – this was down two per cent on the past year but reflected an overall increase in the number of seats available.

The company has not released revenue figures for the last quarters, saying they will be included in the full year’s accounts to be published in June.

In March Flybe bought three Q400 aircraft, previously leased, for $34m in line with its strategy of moving away from a reliance on operating leases and towards outright ownership.

Flybe's cash position remains strong with £171.3m in its coffers as of March 31.

Looking ahead to the summer, Flybe say their bookings on track. With 21 per cent of seats already sold.

This is three per cent down on April last year but again that reflects a 17 per cent increase in capacity over the summer months – 34 existing routes have extra services and 39 completley new routes have been added.

In Southampton Flybe has added services to Lyon and Munich and increased the frequency of its flights on a number of its French regional routes, Brest, Limoges and Perpignan Chief executive Saad Hammad said: "This last year has seen enormous progress at Flybe. We are carrying more passengers across a growing route network and doing so at a lower unit cost.

“We are also continuing to reduce unit cost, which provides margin resilience, as well as reviewing our capacity growth rate beyond this summer.

Our booking profile for the summer reflects our capacity investments and our growing appeal to business travellers who typically book as close as possible to their day of travel.

“We look forward to making further progress over the coming year as we enter the next chapter of our journey which is focused on disciplined and profitable growth."