V-Flyer

£80m loss in the last financial year - read here.

What with IAG, AF-KLM and others posting large losses, and reports that for BA alone fuel in the first half cost them 25% more than last year, it seems the industry still has a way to go. Good news that passenger numbers are rising however.

On a sour note, I don't see why Mr R. complains about APD costs, that's pass through and shouldn't really be mentioned as a cause of a loss for VS n( .

No wonder the fuel surcharge is so high. Can't see it coming down now, especially as with passenger numbers rising it clearly isn't putting people off buying tickets.

What worries me is if passenger numbers are up yet profits are down, VS may have to find more ways to cut costs or increase revenue. If I were a betting man I'd now lay money on charges for seat reservations coming in in November.

gumshoe wrote:What worries me is if passenger numbers are up yet profits are down, VS may have to find more ways to cut costs or increase revenue. If I were a betting man I'd now lay money on charges for seat reservations coming in in November.

Made me laugh I was going to say the same thing!

In all seriousness, though, I did a back-of-envelope calculation of how much this would earn an airline, and my guess is that it is actually pretty marginal.

It certainly goes to show how tough the market is right now.

However, VS (and BA) do themselves no favors, when we redid our corp contract a couple of months ago, VS and BA were excluded due to the YQ surcharge, both bids were good, but the company I work for uses miles earned for business trips, when the bean counters ran the numbers the YQ surcharge made both airlines uncompetitive.

However, losing one corp. contract is a drop in the bucket compared to the revenue earned on the YQ charge on FF redemption's, with out that there is no VS.

slinky09 wrote:£80m loss in the last financial year - read here.

On a sour note, I don't see why Mr R. complains about APD costs, that's pass through and shouldn't really be mentioned as a cause of a loss for VS n( .

Careful tuition by media consultants... Keep banging on about APD to deflect discussion and questioning on why fuel isn't in base fare...

northernhenry wrote:Careful tuition by media consultants... Keep banging on about APD to deflect discussion and questioning on why fuel isn't in base fare...

Think I remember reading once that the reason the fuel charge is not added to the base fare was because the price of aviation fuel fluctuates. Therefore the likes of VS and BA can adjust the surcharge accordingly but of course we all know how that has worked out .. The fuel surcharge just keeps going upwards only.

The government APD is insignificant in comparison

The comparison is not that simple though.

IAG is now loss making due to Iberia. BA itself is profitable. BA's operating profit for the year to December 2011 was £518m and for the first half of the year was £12m after bmi.

Reading between the lines, aside from the fleet, I think Virgin's problem is that revenue growth has not kept up with capacity growth and Virgin needs a partner across the atlantic fast.

nguba wrote:
Reading between the lines, aside from the fleet, I think Virgin's problem is that revenue growth has not kept up with capacity growth and Virgin needs a partner across the atlantic fast.

Hence they are purchasing smaller aircraft in the A330 and 787 to cut capacity?