Airline Virgin Australia has fallen into the red.
The company on Friday reported a net loss of $98.1 million for the year to June 30, compared with a $22.8 million profit the previous year.
The result was in line with guidance for a $95 million to $110 million loss.
The company said a difficult economic and competitive environment, significant one-off restructuring and transformation costs, and the carbon tax, were to blame.
Stripping out one-offs and the recently-acquired Skywest, the underlying pre-tax loss was $72.8 million, down from an $82.5 million profit in 2011/12.
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Revenue and income increased 2.6 per cent in 2012/13 to $4 billion, compared to a 20 per cent jump recorded the year before.
Net operating expenses jumped seven per cent to $4.12 billion.
No dividend has been declared, in line with last year.
Virgin Australia Chief Executive Officer John Borghetti said it had been a “pivotal year”.
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“While the financial results clearly did not meet our initial expectations, the 2013 financial year was a pivotal year for Virgin Australia, in which we completed our major restructuring and transformation program and reshaped the competitive landscape of the Australian aviation market, despite a very difficult economic environment and intense competition,” he said.
“As part of this program, we secured access to the growing budget, charter and regional market segments, we successfully executed the crucial transition from a ticketless to a global ticketed airline environment with the implementation of the our new booking and check-in system, SabreSonic.
“Each of these initiatives is critical to our success going forward.
“The 2014 financial year represents the fourth year of our five-year Game Change Program strategy in which we will focus on consolidating our market positioning in order to drive earnings growth.”
The airline declined to provide guidance for the current financial year.
“Given the uncertain economic environment we are unable to provide guidance for the 2014 financial year at this time,” Borghetti said.
Virgin’s major shareholders have provided the airline with a $90 million loan facility to ease any liquidity concerns.
Air New Zealand, Etihad Airways and Singapore Airlines are each separately providing funding, with a one year loan term.
The funds would further supplement and diversify Virgin’s liquidity position, the company said in a statement.
