The flag carrier on Thursday reported it made an underlying profit after tax of $2.47 billion for the 12 months to June 30, compared with a $1.86 billion loss the previous year.
Revenue grew to $19.8 billion, up from $9.1 billion last year.
"It is a world away from the $7 billion in statutory losses we racked up during COVID," chief executive Alan Joyce told reporters.
"This is a remarkable turnaround, three years in the making."
Qantas also announced plans to replace its ageing fleet of 28 Airbus A330s with two dozen new aircraft to meet what Mr Joyce described as "incredibly robust" travel demand.
The company will start taking delivery of the dozen new Boeing 787 Dreamliners and 12 Airbus A350s in 2026/27, with plans to use them both domestically and internationally.
"Because these aircraft have a fantastic range and better fuel efficiency, they are also going to enable us to open more routes across the Pacific, into Europe and also Asia," incoming Qantas Group CEO Vanessa Hudson said.
"These aircraft are going to give us this unique opportunity to meet demand where it is, and also drive new points on the map for the Australian travelling public, so we think it's an incredibly exciting future."
Mr Joyce said Qantas was 11 weeks away from bankruptcy during the pandemic, but was now in its best financial position.
During the financial year, the flagship carrier's net debt was reduced 27 per cent to $2.89 billion, from a peak of $6.4 billion at the height of the pandemic.
"The future for Qantas has never looked better," said Mr Joyce, who is retiring in November.
While Qantas still won't resume paying the dividends it cancelled during the pandemic, it will buy back $500 million in shares.
RBC Capital Markets analyst Owen Birrell said the result was overall in line with expectations and left Qantas with a very strong balance sheet.
Mr Joyce, who has been summoned to appear before the Australian Senate's cost-of-living inquiry next week, said economy fares had dropped 12 per cent since peaking last December.
"No business is immune to high inflation at the moment," he said. "We understand the need for affordable travel - Jetstar sold over nine million fares for under $100 in financial year 2023."
Mr Joyce said fares should keep dropping as more international capacity comes online.
Qantas's domestic capacity is above pre-COVID-19 levels, and international capacity is at about 80 per cent.
By the middle of next year the company's international capacity should be at pre-COVID levels, which Mr Joyce said was the fastest it could get wide-body aircraft back in the air.
"We have the aircraft, we have the pilots, it's just taken us a while to get the maintenance done, because every airline in the world is getting maintenance done on aircraft that went into storage for three years," he said.
Mr Joyce also said the group was launching its 17th major sale in the past 12 months, with one million seats available across Qantas and Jetstar.
He denied charges that Qantas was deliberating cancelling flights to engage in "slot hoarding", saying it only cancelled flights for legitimate reasons such as technical difficulties.
"The underlying premise of this is that this is blocking competitors getting slots - and that's just wrong," Mr Joyce said, accusing "monopolistic airports" of attempting to make a case for using Qantas's slots for other purposes to improve their profitability.
In early trading Qantas shares were up 1.9 per cent to $6.29.
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