Barely a year-and-a-half old, Virgin America has had to navigate its way through soaring and sliding oil prices and the inception of a recession. Given the climate, it's no wonder the airline has reported losses thus far. But CEO C. David Cush says those kinds of results are expected for a start-up, and he remains confident the airline will make a profit soon. Cush spoke with aviation editor Michael Fabey about what sets Virgin apart and why the airline will continue to fight to keep its operational information out of the hands of the government and the carrier's competitors.
Q: You just released your financial figures for the first time, reporting $175.4 million in losses and $259.6 million in revenue over the first three quarters of 2008. How do you feel about those numbers at this stage?
A: The numbers are justifying our performance. We're certainly satisfied. They are in line with our projections.
Q: You've lost $270.2 million since starting up. Doesn't that bother you?
A: That's what getting into the airline business is all about. You have early losses. The revenue performance has been the key thing.
Q: What are you expecting financially through the rest of the year and next?
A: We're projecting single-digit losses for this year and then to be profitable in 2010.
Q: Even in this bad economy?
A: We do. But you couldn't write a worse script to start a new airline. We've had the most trying oil events in a lifetime, maybe two lifetimes.
Q: Has the economy forced you to change your expansion plans?
A: We have adjusted a little. But we're still about two times the size of JetBlue when they were at the same stage. We'll take advantage of openings as they come up, but we're going to slow down over the next 18 months.
Q: Most of your competitors are talking now about retrenching, in light of the economy. What do you think will separate you from the pack, to help you grow at all?
A: I believe people are tired of the service that's been out there. They're saying, "Enough is enough." They're looking for better service at a lower price.
Q: What kind of service makes you different?
A: Our entire fleet will have onboard Internet by May. We'll be the only ones with it on every plane. Instead of running to the airport and wondering if you can get emails off in time, when you get on the airplane, it will always be there.
Q: You recently lost your battle to keep financial and other data out of the hands of the Transportation Department and your competitors. How important is that fight?
A: It is a big deal to us. We feel very strongly about this. We're a private company. The key thing is that this has never been a tussle about whether our results are good or bad. Having to divulge our numbers like this to the government -- route by route, flight by flight -- and have them turn around and give this information out is a holdover from the deregulation days. It's anti-competitive. ... We're going to convince this administration that this is harmful.
Q: Other airlines have to supply the information. Why should you be any different?
A: No one should have to release data with this detail. If you want to have competition, you can't give the legacy airlines a leg up. They have hundreds of MBAs who sit there and do nothing but crunch their numbers. This hasn't been an obsession with us; it's just damaging to competition.