SYDNEY, Aug. 29 (Xinhua) -- Despite landing its highest ever domestic earnings, Virgin Australia's full-year statutory profit failed to take off for the 6th consecutive year.
Announced to the Australian Securities Exchange on Wednesday, the airline posted a loss of 681 million Australian dollars (500 million U.S. dollars).
According to the company's statement, deferred tax accounting write-offs to the tune of 451.9 million Australian dollars (331.83 million U.S. dollars), along with the impairment of 120.8 million Australian dollars (88.70 million U.S. dollars) of business assets were the main reasons for the statutory losses.
A 45 million Australian dollars (33 million U.S. dollars) lift in the cost of fuel also dragged on the bottom line.
"While these adjustments have impacted our statutory result for the year, they are non-cash and have no impact on the fundamentals of the Group's underlying business," Virgin Australia CEO John Borghetti said.
In total, full-year revenue actually shot up 7.4 percent to 5.42 billion Australian dollars (3.98 billion U.S. dollars) to give the carrier an underlying before tax profit of 109.6 million Australian dollars (80.48 million U.S. dollars).
"This outcome was driven by record earnings in our core domestic business, which represents two thirds of our revenue base, and supported by significant improvements in our cash and leverage results," Borghetti said.
"Today's financial results show that the business is in a good position to achieve sustainable profitability going forward."
