Virgin America has released its financial results for the fourth quarter of 2008, featuring a $27 million operating loss but an optimistic revenue growth trend.
Despite fuel costs and a challenging economic climate in 2008, the airline reported strong and steadily growing unit revenue, significant cash on-hand, and strong load factors in the latter part of 2008. The airline ended the quarter with $68 million in cash.
"These results have exceeded our expectations, and show steady quarter-over-quarter growth in unit revenue and margin improvement since our launch in August 2007," said Virgin America president and CEO David Cush. "We reported record load factors in the fourth quarter, and in some cases, double-digit load leads over our competitors on a route-by-route basis. We're confident in our business model."
The operating results showed a $27 million operating loss for the quarter, on revenues of $110 million. The airline reported an overall 81.2% load factor. Unit revenue was up 87% versus the fourth quarter of 2007, and up 5.3% versus the third quarter of 2008. Previously, the airline reported that quarter-over-quarter unit revenue improved by 28% in the first quarter of 2008, by 26% in the second quarter and by 10% in the third quarter.
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