Addendum
Stellar returns at Air New Zealand and Qantas but Virgin Australia remains in loss
September 1st 2016
Air New Zealand continues to punch above its weight with the announcement of a full year profit, to June 30, of NZ$463 million (US$338 million), an increase of 42% over the previous year. Read More » Earnings were a record, up 70%, to US$806 million, before tax and other items. The airline’s CEO, Christopher Luxon, Orient Aviation’s 2014 Person of the Year, said 8,200 staff not covered by other incentive programs would each receive a performance bonus of $2,500 and the government, which owns 52% of Air NZ, would be paid a dividend of $260 million.
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Air NZ’s achievement is all the more impressive when it is considered that not so long ago the carrier was in near death mode after a complicated series of investor missteps forced the New Zealand government to buy into the carrier to keep it alive.
Across the Tasman, in Sydney, Qantas Group CEO, Alan Joyce, also introduced some historical perspective to his audience when he announced the group’s recording breaking after tax profit for the year to June 30. “This is the best result in the 95-year history of Qantas and the best result in Australian aviation, full stop,” he said. Joyce was celebrating the turnaround of the group from a A$2.8 billion (US$1.13 billion) in 2014 to a $557 million profit last year and a $1.03 billion after tax profit in the 2015-2016 fiscal year.
At Virgin Australia’s results announcement, the mood was more subdued. The airline reported a fourth quarter loss of A$228 million (US$170.8 million) as it booked costs for its fleet reduction program, including five ATRs and all its E190 aircraft, the result of its financially painful capacity war with Qantas. The carrier, headquartered in Brisbane, forecast it would spend up to $250 million in restructuring costs in the next two years. For the year ended June 30, Virgin reported an after tax loss of $224.7 million, almost double its losses of 12 months ago. But it had an underlying pre-tax profit of $41 million compared with a loss 12 months ago and increased its overall load factor by 4.5%.
