Virgin Blue reports $160m net loss

[Sarah C]

From the Travel Daily...........more to come:

"Virgin Blue has just reported a net loss after tax of $160 million for the year ended 30 Jun 2009, saying the result confirms forecasts in its recent equity raising and trading update.

CEO Brett Godfrey said the result was in line with expectations in the toughest operating environment the company had yet experienced.Excluding one-off and non-recurring items, the underlying earnings for the group was $14m, he said.V Australia delivered an underlying EBIT loss of $124m including one-off startup costs and a $64m loss for the first four months of operation.The company said based on current market conditions it expects to break even this financial year."

[Steve Jones]

Wow! You beat Andrew C, who usually has such news (ie: bad for DJ/TT or good for QF/JQ) up in a flash!

Jokes aside, V Australia is obviously doing it really tough - lucky for DJ their domestic side seems to be holding up quite well, otherwise I imagine the result could have been so much worse!

[Daniel M]

Glad I'm not the only one to notice this...would have thought Andrew would have been over this thread in no time

[James K]

Well he's no different to the ones that are all over QF/JQ in a flash when there is bad news.

[Arthur T]

I think it is acceptable where airline set up costs is high and not easy to enter the market, plus the economy had been bad last year...

I am just wondering whether Virgin Blue would simply have a big bath this year and perhaps the results will jump highly as it has signs of recovery right now.

If the results still worse than expected, then Virgin Blue must consider whether they should keep themselves as a low-cost carrier. Because somewhat I believe their positioning is not so advantagous provided the fierce competition with JetStar, Tiger and QANTAS - The Spirit of Australia.

[Michael Morrison]

I think their positioning is ok. The Virgin Blue bsuiness is performing well and still managing to take pax from QF.

The loss is a direct result of V Australia's first 4 months operating losses, hedging, currency and VA start up costs