Qantas Airways Ltd (ASX: QAN) shares are racing higher on Thursday morning.

At the time of writing, the airline operator's shares are up 5% to $9.35 and within sight of a record high.

This follows the release of the Flying Kangaroo's half year results before the market open.

Qantas shares take off on results day

Investors have been buying the company's shares after responding positively to its 9% increase in revenue to $12.1 billion.

This top line growth was driven by a 7% increase in Qantas Domestic revenue, a 6% lift in Qantas International revenue, a 16% jump in Jetstar revenue, and a 5% lift in Qantas Loyalty revenue.

Things were even better on the bottom line, with Qantas recording an 11% increase in half year profit before tax to $1.39 billion.

This was driven largely by strong growth in the Jetstar business, which recorded a 35% jump in segment EBIT to $439 million. Management advised that this record result reflects strong demand, capacity growth from efficient new fleet, transformation offsetting inflation, operational improvements, and lower fuel costs.

In light of this strong performance, the Qantas board elected to bring back its dividend after a five-and-a-half-year hiatus.

The Qantas dividend

The good news for shareholders is that Qantas not only brought back its first interim dividend since 2019 but also declared a special dividend this morning. It said:

With the business generating sufficient franking credits, the Board has approved a fully franked base dividend of $250 million (16.5 cents per share), expected to be sustainable through the cycle, and a special dividend, also fully franked, of $150 million (9.9 cents per share). The dividends will be paid on 16 April 2025.

That's total dividends of 26.4 cents per share, which equates to a dividend yield of approximately 3% based on its last close price.

Though, if you were one of the fortunate investors to have picked up shares a year ago at $5.17, you would be receiving a very attractive yield on cost of 5.1% from these dividends alone.

It certainly paid to listen when I was urging investors to pick up Qantas shares a year ago while they were dirt cheap.

To be eligible for this Qantas dividend, investors will need to own the airline's shares before they go ex-dividend next month on 11 March. After which, they can look forward to receiving a pay check from Qantas the following month on 16 April.