{"id":4264,"date":"2019-04-10T08:46:15","date_gmt":"2019-04-10T13:46:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planesintheair.com\/?p=4264"},"modified":"2019-04-10T08:46:21","modified_gmt":"2019-04-10T13:46:21","slug":"virgin-atlantic-posts-annual-loss-for-second-year-running","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/?p=4264","title":{"rendered":"Virgin Atlantic Posts Annual Loss for Second Year Running"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

(Reuters)\n – Virgin Atlantic on Wednesday reported an annual pretax loss for the \nsecond consecutive year, hit by a shaky economy, the higher costs of \nfuel generated by a weaker British pound and problems with Rolls Royce’s\n Trent engines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\n airline, the 1980s brainchild of British billionaire Richard Branson, \nfell back into the red in 2017 after three years of profits, as \ncompetition intensified and the weakening of the pound added to already \nrising fuel costs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Best\n known in Europe for the trans-Atlantic planes it flies with Air \nFrance-KLM and Delta, Virgin said its loss before tax and exceptional \nitems was 26.1 million pounds ($34.12 million) for the year ended Dec. \n31, compared to a loss of 49 million pounds in 2017.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Total\n revenue rose 5.8 percent to 2.78 billion pounds, as passenger numbers \ngrew just under 5 percent to 5.4 million and revenue per customer rose \n1.7 percent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\n company said performance had suffered from economic uncertainty and the\n weaker pound – which increases costs because fuel is priced in dollars –\n as well as the well-documented problems of the Trent 1000 engines used \non its Boeing 787 jets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“While\n a loss is disappointing, our performance has improved in 2018 despite \nchallenging economic conditions and put us on a trajectory for growth \nand return to profitability,” Chief Executive Officer Shai Weiss said in\n a statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rolls-Royce\n on Wednesday agreed to an early inspection of some Trent 1000 TEN \nengines by regulatory authorities, a week after Singapore Airlines \ngrounded two Boeing 787-10 jets fitted with the units.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

British\n Airways owner IAG in February chose Boeing 777-9s, rather than a \ncompeting package from Airbus in part powered by Rolls, underlining the \nrisks to airlines from the engine issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since\n then the industry has been thrown into chaos by the grounding of \nBoeing’s new 737 MAX planes after a second fatal crash within six \nmonths.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\n pound fell 5.6 percent against the U.S. dollar, in 2018 as Britain \ncontended with the political and economic uncertainty generated by its \nnegotiations on leaving the European Union.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finance\n chief Tom Mackay said that while economic factors would continue to \nchallenge the carrier in the year ahead, Virgin Atlantic was in a strong\n cash position.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\n results are the company’s first since its acquisition of troubled \nregional airline Flybe for $2.8 million earlier this year, in a joint \nbid with Stobart Group and Cyrus Capital.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

($1 = 0.7649 pounds)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Reporting by Noor Zainab Hussain and Pushkala Aripaka in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D’Silva)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Virgin Atlantic on Wednesday reported an annual pretax loss for the second consecutive year, hit by a shaky economy, the higher costs of fuel generated by a weaker British pound and problems with Rolls Royce’s Trent engines.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[797,89,2203,868,1103],"tags":[747,947,45,205,42,3648,539,47,118,625,3566,2374,160,2804,41,2808,624,2390,1924,736,4141,246,595,335,1767,3149,4139,207,1757,745,620,589,130,3759,46,412,2383,503,2467,4138,1089,1288,2806,2504,2505,413,4140,1018,512,3407],"class_list":["post-4264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-airline-news","category-aviation-news","category-finance-news","category-transportation-news","category-travel-news","tag-747","tag-947","tag-45","tag-205","tag-42","tag-acquisition","tag-air","tag-airbus","tag-airlines","tag-airways","tag-annual","tag-atlantic","tag-aviation","tag-billionaire","tag-boeing","tag-branson","tag-british","tag-capital","tag-cost","tag-crash","tag-cyrus","tag-delta","tag-economy","tag-engine","tag-europe","tag-fatal","tag-flybe","tag-france","tag-fuel","tag-group","tag-iag","tag-jet","tag-klm","tag-loss","tag-max","tag-news","tag-owner","tag-plane","tag-post","tag-pound","tag-regional","tag-reuters","tag-richard","tag-rolls","tag-royce","tag-singapore","tag-stobart","tag-trent","tag-virgin","tag-weak"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4264"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4264\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4267,"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4264\/revisions\/4267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}