Virgin commits to strategic focus
Virgin Australia is turning its back on market share and focusing more on strategy as it looks to boost profitability and performance in the Australian skies.
Speaking at an aviation conference in Sydney this morning, Virgin Australia chief operating officer Sean Donohue revealed that achieving a greater portion of market share was not on the agenda this year.
Instead, strategy and building bilateral partnerships are set to be the key focus as the airline dedicates itself to improving overall performance, he said.
“We are not focused on market share. It’s not the right strategy. Our focus is on profitability and trying to be the airline of choice in Australia,” he said. “Ultimately that is best for our customers and our shareholders.”
Noting that new alliances with Air New Zealand, Delta and Etihad had delivered “tremendous benefits” to Virgin’s network, Donohue revealed that more alliances were on the cards.
Improving regional airport lounges and expanding terminal numbers at Sydney Airport were other key strategies to improve Virgin’s competitive edge on Qantas.
“We need to increase our gate numbers to improve our on time performance,” he said. "We only have nine at Sydney, while Qantas has 16. We need to change this to be competitive in this very difficult environment.”
On the back of a 60% increase in business and government travel in the previous 12 months, Donohue remained confident Virgin Australia’s strategy would hit revenue targets for 2012.
But he admitted there was still “some way to go” for the airline to hit its overall performance targets.
“We have a lot of work ahead of us in this very, very difficult industry, but we think our strategy is the right one,” he concluded.
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