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Red Jet
27th Aug 2009, 06:09
It seems the sky is not falling......

Virgin Blue flags breakeven year




Steve Creedy, Aviation Writer | August 27, 2009

Article from: The Australian (http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/)
VIRGIN Blue expects to break even this financial year after posting an expected full-year net loss of $160 million.
The results, which were in line with figures revealed at the start of the airline’s recent equity raising, produced an underlying net loss of $13 million for the year ended June 30 as the airline faced its toughest operating environment yet.

Virgin said in its outlook that strategic initiatives in the past 12 months had positioned the company to move quickly to benefit from any economic improvement.

“Notwithstanding further economic deterioration and based on current market conditions, the group result for FY10 is expected to be breakeven, with a positive group cash inflow (excluding proceeds from the recent equity raising),” it said.

Revenue at the group was up 12.8 per cent to $2.64 billion, but yields fell 5.3 per cent and operating expenses jumped 22 per cent, to $2.67bn, as the airline launched long-haul carrier V Australia and expanded its fleet.

But Virgin’s short-haul operations proved resilient with yields falling just 2.4 per cent, passenger revenues rising 9.9 per cent and the load factor declining just 0.5 points to 79.2 per cent.

Chief executive Brett Godfrey said: “While airlines have been variously impacted by the global economic crisis, our approach was to respond swiftly and definitively to softening domestic demand.

“Key strategies included redeployment of domestic capacity to short haul international routes, a programme of cost saving and productivity initiatives across the business and Virgin Blue’s first headcount reductions, achieved in consultation with our team.

“These measures achieved a 4.5 per cent reduction in overall group cost per available seat kilometre excluding fuel with the outstanding result in our short-haul operation where the unit cost was reduced for a second year in a row by a further 4.8 per cent.’’

Jabawocky
27th Aug 2009, 06:48
You would have to say thats not abad effort as 12 months ago the sky was slmost literally falling. Trouble is some more chunks could still break off yet! :uhoh:

porch monkey
27th Aug 2009, 07:01
We'll see......

Wod
27th Aug 2009, 07:04
In the circumstances a good result.

I'm still concerned about V Oz, where aircraft are being redeployed to new routes with additional start-up costs which will drag this financial year down, but not nearly as pessimistic as I once was.

Wish 'em well.

Still a QF supporter, but after that any Australian airline ahead of the foreigners:ok:

Goat Whisperer
27th Aug 2009, 07:11
Not much startup costs associated with sending existing aircraft and crew to new ports.

Ken Borough
27th Aug 2009, 08:01
Not much startup costs associated with sending existing aircraft and crew to new ports.

Yair right. Tell this to Alan Joyce, Brett Godfrey and any other airline CEO. They will be delighted to hear from you - absolutely.

Bo777
27th Aug 2009, 08:52
It seems the sky is not falling......

... that's what I call blind optimism.

Chocks Away
27th Aug 2009, 11:34
Ken:
Not much startup costs associated with sending existing aircraft and crew to new ports. ..
I believe he may be referring to International legs of NZ Wellington, Hamilton and Indo legs which many VB drivers are rated on now already...:confused:

The sky was not falling, if you cared to look at "the stats" of Virgin/PB/Poly as a whole... typically, they don't separate each company's financial position, except Poly.
...I'm (we're) being a sceptic here of your HR & Marketing I'm sorry, given their track record in behavior.
There has been more spin than the DJ's on Tiesto (http://www.tiesto.com/) and Groove FM (http://www.groove.com.au/).

SIDS N STARS
27th Aug 2009, 17:47
That all sounds rosie...but...

whats the G-O with their western ops?? Apparently Cobham/Qlink were going to "break them"??

Cactusjack
4th Sep 2009, 13:26
More VB spin.Truth is that 'Godders' was punted by the board, hence his not so long ago ' departure announcement' , aimed at a timeframe within 12 months. Well the latest finance statement within VB has not gone down too well with the board, and he will be gone by Dec 31.