Virgin Australia's short term pain designed to fast track its domestic transformation programme

Virgin Australia reported a statutory loss after tax of AUD98.1 million (USD87.8 million) for the financial year to 30-Jun-2013, coming in at the lower end of its surprise profit warning issued on 05-Aug-2013, largely due to a tough competitive domestic environment, a slowing economy and large one-off restructuring and business transformation costs.

During FY2013 Virgin Australia undertook the monumental task of switching to the SabreSonic bookings system, acquired Western Australia regional carrier Skywest to expand its reach into the regional and lucrative fly-in-fly-out contract markets and took a 60% controlling stake in LCC Tigerair Australia providing the group with a dual brand strategy to match the Qantas/Jetstar model.