Virgin America has grown its corporate business volume on
the heels of airline consolidation, president and CEO David Cush said during
the carrier’s third-quarter earnings call Thursday.
While consolidation has made competitors more powerful, it
also has opened doors for discussions with corporate travel buyers, he said. “Corporate
travel managers like to have several different carriers in their portfolios.”
About
20 percent of Virgin America’s business comes through corporate channels like global
distribution systems, he said. “Over the last 12 months, with the last legs of
consolidation, we’ve been able to get into accounts we haven’t been able to
before, and as we increase the utility of our network, we will be more active
in corporate.”
The strongest corporate demand has come from
services/consulting and tech, from which Virgin America’s San Francisco hub, in
particular, has benefited, he said. The finance sector has been flat, and
demand from the defense and energy sector is down, but it all has evened out so
that “corporate spending looks OK,” Cush said.
During the quarter, passenger revenue grew just 0.1 percent
year over year to $366.1 million, and total operating revenue increased 1.3
percent to $410.9 million. Virgin America’s net income for the quarter rose
72.7 percent year over year to $71.9 million, boosted by a 35.1 percent drop in
fuel costs.
Virgin America’s average fare declined 9.1 percent to
$197.98 during the quarter, and yield was down 1.8 percent. Traffic increased
1.9 percent as capacity increased 3 percent; the carrier’s load factor declined
a percentage point to 82.5 percent.