Virgin Atlantic boosted by tour operator performance

The group, which saw revenue of £2.78 billion, said Virgin Holidays had made “a substantial contribution” to the result, with a profit before tax and exceptional items of £10.9 million, a £5 million year on year improvement, which accounts for almost half of the group’s overall figure. During the year, the group sold and leased back four Boeing 787s, generating £57.7 million, which is also included in exceptional items.

The results confirm a turnaround from the 2013 and 2012, when the Virgin Group lost a total of £153 million but underline that it still has some ground to make up.

During the calendar year, Virgin Atlantic flew 5.9 million passengers and Virgin Holidays sold 325,000 packages. Virgin Atlantic saw average load factors down 2.5 percentage points year on year to 76.8% “driven by a significant redeployment of capacity” which saw it axe routes to Tokyo, Mumbai, Cape Town and Vancouver in favour of a 14.8% increase in transatlantic capacity. The network is now 70% transatlantic.

Virgin’s partnership with Delta at Heathrow saw the market share to US cities without a non-stop service from the UK rise six points to 37%. The joint venture carried almost 400,000 passengers connecting between the two airlines and will bring more than 550 codeshare routes with up to 43 daily transatlantic services this summer.

One bright spot was a fall in airline operating costs that plummeted by £196 million, largely driven by a 34% fall in fuel prices. However, the airline admitted “we did not anticipate this development” and had been caught out in its hedging.

Virgin Atlantic chief executive Craig Kreeger added: “Our fuel hedging programme meant we did not benefit fully from the fall in the price of oil, but our hedging position will continue to unwind and give us significant savings in 2016. “We are confident that moving forward we have the right fleet, network and partners in place to be more profitable than ever before by 2018.”