Virgin America maintains an optimistic outlook despite competitive capacity pressure

Virgin America has maintained a reasonably solid passenger unit revenue performance in 2015 even as it is exposed to two region in the US domestic market where pricing pressure has ensued - Dallas and New York.

The airline is joining the majority of its US airline peers in forecasting a unit revenue decline in 3Q2015; but Virgin America is also expressing optimism about 4Q2015 as it starts to lap the industry capacity increases in areas where it has faced heavy competitive pressure in 2015.

During 2H2015 and into 2016 Virgin America's capacity is ratcheting up as the airline adds a total of 10 aircraft to its fleet during that time. For now, Virgin America holds a positive view about the revenue environment in 2016, and is confident that its capacity should be favourably absorbed.