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Virgin Australia reports profit decline

written by australianaviation.com.au | February 3, 2017

 

virgin-australia-skywest-aircraft-per-nov16-rf-5k5a2494
Virgin Australia aircraft at Perth. (Rob Finlayson)

Virgin Australia has reported a drop in profit for the three months to December 31 2016 as weak market conditions hit revenues, prompting the airline group to operate fewer domestic flights.

The company said statutory profit after tax for the second quarter of the 2016/17 financial year came in at $13.1 million, compared with $60.8 million in the prior corresponding period.

Virgin said on Friday the statutory result included the impact of restructuring charges related to its ‘Better Business program’ announced in 2016. However, Virgin did not put a dollar figure on the extent of the one-off charge.

Underlying profit before tax, which removes one-off charges and is regarded as the best indicator of financial performance, fell 37 per cent in the second quarter to $45.9 million, from $73 million a year earlier.

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“Subdued industry trading conditions in the domestic market continued to adversely impact revenue during the second quarter,” Virgin said in a statement to the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX).

“The group continues to actively manage capacity in response to subdued trading conditions.”

An analysis of Virgin’s 2016/17 first and second quarter results showed the airline group achieved a statutory profit after tax of $20.7 million for the first half of the current financial year. The result was down 70 per cent from $69.3 million in the 2015/16 first half.

Meanwhile, Virgin’s 2016/17 first half underlying profit before tax was $42.3 million, a decline of 48 per cent from $81.5 million achieved in the 2015/16 first half.

The company said the total sectors flown on Virgin Australia’s domestic network was down five per cent in the second quarter.

While capacity, measured by available seat kilometres (ASK) rose 1.6 per cent in the quarter, Virgin said this was “primarily driven” by an increase in widebody Airbus A330-200 flights compared with the second quarter of 2015/16, when a number of aircraft were temporarily taken out of service to have a new business class cabin installed.

Further, the progressive withdrawal of Virgin’s Embraer E190 fleet has meant some routes previously served by the 98-seat aircraft have been upgauged to “larger aircraft”, mostly the 176-seat Boeing 737-800.

“The group expects the Virgin Australia domestic business to generate an underlying earnings before interest and tax margin of between three and six per cent for the 2017 financial year,” Virgin said.

Virgin Australia’s international network reported an 8.1 per cent reduction in ASKs. The airline handed over flights to Bali from Adelaide, Melbourne and Perth to its low-cost unit Tigerair Australia in March 2016, which explains the reduction in capacity and a 7.1 per cent fall in passenger numbers.

Meanwhile, Tigerair continued to post double-digit growth.

The low-cost carrier, which has 14 Airbus A320s and four 737-800s in its fleet, grew domestic and international ASKs 24.7 per cent in the second quarter.

As previously mentioned, Tigerair started international flights to Bali (which have been suspended due to regulatory issues with Indonesia) in March 2016.

However, the growth in available seats was more than matched by market demand, with Tigerair increasing revenue passenger kilometres (RPK) 28.9 per cent in the quarter. As a result, load factors rose 2.8 percentage points to 89.3 per cent across its domestic and international network.

Virgin said it had strengthened its balance sheet in the second quarter through a reduction in net debt and an increase in its total cash balance.

Virgin said the closing total cash balance of $1.6 billion at December 31 was the highest ever reported total cash balance for the airline group.

The airline group raised about $1.1 billion from shareholders in 2016 thanks to a share placement new investor HNA, as well as a capital raising through the issuing of new shares.

“The group delivered positive outcomes in its liquidity and leverage as a result of the program of work that was initiated under the group’s capital structure review in the 2016 financial year,” Virgin said.

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Comments (5)

  • Jayson

    says:

    This airline is a mess……. where is it going, what is its motivation….looks like the JB medal winner is just trying to cover his arse before cutting and running…..

    Management totally screwed this airline up, too many purchases without actually doing a quality expansion with real long term growth….. my god….plenty of airlines are making money, and this mob manage to lose it hand over fist!!!

  • ian

    says:

    VA frequent flyer programme is superior to Qantas’s.

    BUT, many people don’t know, until they try to book Qantas frequent flyer seats, that Qantas still gets away with massive fuel surcharges.

    Eg. last time I looked a SYD/LAX/SYD using Qantas ff pts was 96,000 pts + over $700 in charges.(some return fares last year to LAX were only $700 without using points & instead earning them)

    Virgin is about the same number of pts but only ~$200 in charges.

    Virgin needs to highlight this point.

    & virgins product is superior as well.

  • Michael Dart

    says:

    I would say the reason why QANTAS still slugs you with a fuel surcharge is because they consider it as a tax separate from the airfare where as Virgin builds its fuel surcharge into its actual fare figure.

  • Rocket

    says:

    This is just a continual stream of weasel-word rubbish. This airline was profitable before the current management took over. Every quarter we get another weasel-worded excuse for the group’s inability to make a profit. Maybe IF Virgin’s product is better and they charge less surcharges that’s why they can’t make a profit. It’s easy to have a great product (like Ansett International in the 90s) if you spend far more than what you earn. There are simply no more excuses. If this was a mining company, a telecommunications company or any other sort of transport company which was publicly listed without majority overseas airline investment, it would have either a) gone out of business by now under the weight of crushing debt or, b) the entire senior management including the CEO would have been fired long ago. This company is one debacle and one excuse after another. People waxing lyrical and going on about product really doesn’t mean squat if the company can’t run profitably. In this day and age of massive salaries and little performance where execs get bonuses when the company performance goes backward and get a gong thrown in what incentive is there to do better???

  • Marcus

    says:

    I think a new marketing segmentation on Virgin Australia would be the life line. With the commonwealth games around the corner and the new football season about to kick off people are starting to plan their diaries for these events. I personally would use sports people and athletes to promote the airline. As one airline one game.

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