Virgin Blue traffic skyrockets over April
Virgin Blue domestic passenger numbers for April increased by 3.1 percent since last year, as operating statistics show traffic and capacity continuing to strengthen.
Domestic traffic measured by revenue passenger kilometres (RPK) jumped 5.1 percent while capacity, measured by available seat kilometres (ASK) increased 0.9 percent.
Revenue load factor was up 3.3 points, as was international passenger numbers which increased 62.6 percent over the year.
Virgin Blue traffic increased by 214.9 percent, while capacity increased by 251.1 percent over the same period.
Revenue load factor was down 7.7 points from the previous year, however on time performance was up 6.5 points to 87.3 percent.
Domestic passenger numbers for the 10 months to April 2009 increased by 5.6 percent from the previous year.
RPKs increased by 5.8 percent, while ASKs improved by 6.3 percent over the same period.
Revenue load factor for the year to date decreased by 0.4 point to 81.8 percent.
International passenger numbers for the 10 months to April 2009 increased by a whopping 70.5 percent from the previous year.
Continuing the upward streak, RPKs increased by 84.5 percent, and ASKs increased by 108.2 percent.
Load factor decreased by 9.1 points to 71.1 percent compared to the previous year, yet on time performance was up 1.5 points to 81.2 percent.
In a re-cap of April news, Pacific Blue Airlines appointed Mark Pitts as its new CEO, replacing John Bartlett who has now retired from the airline.
Townsville landed a spot in Virgin Blue’s history books as the first and only destination that has ever had four new flights launched in one day.
These include direct flights to Cairns, Canberra, Gold Coast and Rockhampton.
New airline
V Australia launched its second route, linking Queensland to California, with the departure of the inaugural service between Brisbane and Los Angeles.
Finally, the loyalty program of the Virgin Blue Group of Airlines, Velocity, took out Program of The Year award at the annual Freddie Awards in Florida.