I always enjoy a good “compare and contrast”. Perspective etc..
Virgin Atlantic 2008/2009
- “Annual pre-tax profits reached £68.4m” (2009)
- “nearly double the £34.8m seen in the year earlier.” (2008)
- “The carrier spent close to £1bn on fuel for the year.”
British Airways 2008/2009
- “BA reported a loss before tax of £401m” (2009)
- “The airline made a revised profit of £922m in the previous year.” (2008)
- “BA faced a near-£3bn fuel bill. “
So … based on fuel usage, BA flies about three times more than Virgin Atlantic. Perhaps Virgin Atlantic have vastly more fuel efficient planes? Or maybe BA just overpaid by judging the fuel market wrong?
Still, 922 - 401 still means that BA made more than £500 million (pre tax) over the last two years.
In those same two years, Virgin made a touch over £100 million (pre tax).
So waving hands all over the place, one might infer that BA is somewhere like three to five times the size of Virgin Atlantic.
Then again, Wikipedia says British Airways have 231 planes, with 57 on order but Virgin Atlantic have only 38 with 21 on order. Not sure what (if anything) I might conclude from that tho ….
ps. more funny numbers: A child is bitten by a dog every 0.07 seconds…
