Virgin America ! VX ! VRD

Virgin America will apply to the US Department of Transportation (DOT) for the authority to fly from its San Francisco base to Washington National Airport in the third quarter.

The airline is proposing to fly two daily roundtrip flights on the route using its 119-seat Airbus A319 aircraft.

The proposed flights would complement Virgin's existing service to Washington-Dulles, which the carrier launched in 2007. The carrier currently operates four daily flights between Dulles and San Francisco, along with twice-daily Los Angeles service.

Service between National and the US West Coast has historically been restricted by a 2,012km (1,250mi) perimeter rule, but the US government has allowed a limited number of longer-haul flights.

The recently passed reauthorization bill for the Federal Aviation Administration created eight new beyond-perimeter slots earmarked for new entrant or limited-incumbent carriers, of which Virgin is applying for four. Each slot represents one takeoff or one landing.

There is currently no service between the two airports, but United Airlines plans to launch one daily roundtrip beginning in May with 124-seat Boeing 737-700s inherited from its merger with Continental Airlines.

The FAA reauthorization also allowed four incumbent carriers -- American, Delta, United, and US Airways -- to each convert two of their existing slots at National to beyond-perimeter slots.

In support of the proposed service, Virgin America CEO David Cush says in an interview that "San Francisco is the second-largest beyond-perimeter market from Washington" and is "much larger than Denver, and Phoenix, and other places that already have multiple frequencies."

The airline also believes its service, if approved, would yield positive benefits for consumers.

"As a low fare carrier and new entrant, we have had a demonstrated impact on fares since our launch in 2007," said Virgin America VP of Corporate Communications Abby Lunardini. "We have typically seen fares drop by 30% in less competitive long-haul markets we have entered from SFO."

Cush also noted that previous beyond-perimeter slot proceedings "favoured Western hubs" because they "focused much more on network utility than O&D [origin and destination] utility. That's been changed with this order. This order says that O&D utility is as important as network utility."

Cush adds that Virgin is the "best" airline to provide "fair competition" on the route, otherwise there would be "another United monopoly market from SFO."

Cush predicts the airline will be able to fly the route with a full passenger load as the carrier is upgrading the thrust on its CFM56 engines powering its A319 aircraft. The upgrade is expected to be complete by the end of May. National's longest runway is only 2,094m (6,869ft), potentially creating operational challenges for certain aircraft and routes.

Cush also says the carrier's sharklet-equipped A320 aircraft, the first of which is set to arrive next year, will fly on the route if Virgin receives approval.

"In all likelihood, once we get a sharklet-equipped aircraft that's the first place it would go." Cush adds. "Our preliminary numbers show that we can carry close to a full load for us, probably in the 140 [passenger] range." Virgin's current A320 aircraft seat either 146 or 149 passengers.

When asked how the new service could affect Virgin's Dulles service, Cush replied: "we certainly would not" reduce capacity on the route if the airline were to only receive enough slots for one frequency.

A capacity reduction is also "not in the plans" if two roundtrips would be scheduled, "but we have to look at it in terms of market demand and aircraft availability", he says.

No other new-entrant or limited-incumbent carriers at National have applied to receive some of the new beyond-perimeter slots. Applications are due to the DOT by 12 March.

he carrier will now take delivery of 10 Airbus A320 planes, down from
its original order for 30, in 2015 and 2016, according to a statement
today. Those 10 aircraft are the last of the original batch, as the
first 20 were to be handed over to the Burlingame, California-based
airline from 2013 through 2015. Virgin America also deferred the
delivery range for 30 A320neo-model jets to 2020 through 2022 from the
original dates of 2016 through 2019. The moves followed last month’s
disclosure of a capacity reduction from January through March, the first
cut in available seats since the airline started flying in 2007.
“During
the summer we started looking at whether it still made sense to grow as
fast as we were planning on, given fuel prices and what I’ll say is a
modest economic growth climate in the U.S.,” Chief Executive Officer
David Cush said in a telephone interview. “You don’t invest the capital
if you can’t earn an adequate return.” There were no financial penalties
associated with the cancellation, he said.
Virgin America
projected annual growth in available seat miles to be a
mid-single-digit percentage for the “next several years,” down from the
28 percent rate of the past three years.
The airline now flies 52
single-aisle A320s. The A320neo model is Airbus’s latest variant of the
plane and is due to enter service in late 2015. Carriers typically buy
at a discount to list prices, which are $88.3 million for the A320 and
$96.7 million for the neo, according to Airbus.
Wider Loss

Virgin
America also reported that its third-quarter net loss widened to $12.6
million from $3.3 million a year earlier. Revenue jumped 27 percent to
$368 million. The closely held company ended the period with $75 million
in unrestricted cash.
Capacity will be trimmed by about 3
percent in the first quarter to cut costs, Cush told employees in an
October memo in which he also offered voluntary short-term leave to
employees.
A surplus of employees took the voluntary leave offer
for the first quarter and will return to work in April, Cush said in the
interview. He declined to specify the number of employees.
The
company sought voluntary reductions through short-term leave and flex
scheduling because of an anticipated drop in traffic in the first three
months of 2013, Cush wrote earlier in a letter to employees. The company
has about 2,400 employees, according to today’s statement.
Unprofitable Flights

Virgin
America will eliminate some flights that are traditionally unprofitable
during the first three months of the year such as overnight and midweek
flights, and will restore that service in April when demand typically
improves, Cush said.
The airline doesn’t plan to drop any cities, though it will reduce the number of departures in cities including Boston, Cush said in the interview. Virgin America flies to cities including San Francisco, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, New York’s John F. Kennedy airport and Boston.
Looking
ahead to 2013, the airline expects capacity to be unchanged to slightly
larger than in 2012, Cush said. Virgin America will end this year with
capacity up 28 percent from 2011.
“The simple math out of that is
we think we’re big enough right now for the time being,” Cush said.
“The rapid growth we’ve had for the last few years is going to come to a
stop.”
Virgin America may need to pursue a “major restructuring” to survive in the long term, according to Hunter Keay,
an analyst at Wolfe Trahan & Co. in New York. Virgin America has
competition on every route, such as San Francisco to New York. Each of
the 11 other airlines Keay follows has a monopoly on at least 25 percent
of their routes.
‘Network Missteps’

“A combination of
cash burn and network missteps into highly trafficked markets” is
hurting Virgin America, Keay said in an October telephone interview.
“They had an assumption that consumers would choose product quality over
price and convenience, and network carriers responded with force.”
In an Oct. 17 note to clients, the analyst questioned Virgin America’s ability to survive and said its failure would benefit Alaska Air Group Inc. (ALK) and JetBlue Airways Corp. (JBLU) the most.
Cush
disagreed with Keay’s report, specifically the idea of a flawed
business model and poor performance compared with Virgin America’s
established competitors, he said.
Keay “came to the wrong conclusions,” Cush said. “We will prove that over time.”

Beochien a écrit:Ben oui, mais 30 ... ça fait pas mal de points de desserte, ou vraiment beaucoup de fréquences !

Vont ils prendre les 30 A320 NEO, en annuler qq uns ou en convertir ?

Low-fare startup Virgin America Inc. may soon have a new owner.

Takeover offers from two other U.S. airlines— JetBlue Airways Corp. and Alaska Air Group Inc.—are due by the end of the week, according to a person familiar with the matter, in what could signal the latest wave of consolidation in the industry. A preferred buyer could emerge as early as this week, the person said, though a final deal could take longer to complete. The details of the potential offers couldn’t be determined.

Paul a écrit:à 54%