Nick J Parker Head of India & Middle-East, Virgin Atlantic

How do you feel about your airline being awarded with ‘Most Outstanding International Airline of the Year’ award at TnH’s Travel & Hospitality Awards 2014? What does winning this award mean to you?
It is truly an honor to be selected by TnH as the most ‘Most Outstanding International Airline of the Year’. Thank you to all those who voted for us, we’re thrilled to bits. Fourteen years after we first flew from India, we’re still pioneering and offering travellers the best possible experience in the air. Innovation and forward thinking are such an integral part of what we do and how we live to our brand promise.

What factors make your airline as the ‘Most Outstanding International Airline of the Year’?
Although Virgin Atlantic is a global brand, we consider ourselves to have local relevance. Our unique product and premium service are at the core of our brand – as well as our passion for innovating. This year is our 15th year of flying to New Delhi and it remains a key business, leisure and VFR route and continues to be popular with our customers. We aim to continue to grow our market share and offer our customers a unique on- board experience. We started last year with formalizing our Delta joint venture, opening a breadth of connectivity for the Indian market on the transatlantic route. We also announced £300m investment in customer experience, a sizeable chunk of which will be in our cabins, seats and food & beverage. Our strategy is about offering an innovative way to travel, bringing fun and glamour back that only we can offer at no extra cost. Our cabins, our crew and our service are our biggest differentiators.

What do your customers value most about your airline? What is your mantra of service excellence?
Customer service is our priority and we approach it with our own ‘Virgin flair’ and that is one of the reasons why our passengers choose to fly with us. We give our customers a vibrant and a dynamic travel experience that allows them to relax earlier and arrive feeling fresh. It all attributes to how we make them feel and how we enable them to achieve what they want. It is about the whole package, not about product and services in isolation.

What is the long-term vision of your airline?
The success of our business strategy requires us to build on our foundations by focusing on the business and leisure markets, and driving efficiency and effectiveness. India is a strategically important pillar at the heart of Virgin Atlantic’s rest of world network and we remain committed to it. We’re investing a great deal into our customer experience (£300 million over the next four years) and those travelling with us will see lots of innovations and investments in the coming year and beyond. In April, we will be opening a Clubhouse in Los Angeles for the first time. We took delivery of our first Boeing 787-9 in October last year. Our second Dreamliner was welcomed into the Virgin Atlantic fleet on the 2nd of January and has now started flying to Washington DC. This is just the start of us moving towards having a younger and more fuel-efficient fleet as throughout 2015 we will be getting seven more 787s, which will eventually total 21 by 2018. In April 2015, we will be welcoming the brand new Dreamliner 787-9 to India which will start flying daily to London Heathrow from New Delhi. The 787 is not just more environmentally friendly, it is also our best aircraft for customer experience. As well as moving towards a younger fleet, we will be investing in our existing aircraft – driving enhancements in food and wine services as well as being the first UK airline to roll out WiFi across our entire fleet. This means that no matter where our customers fly, they will have the best possible experience on Virgin Atlantic.

What advice would you like to give to young aviation professionals who desire success in this industry?
India has huge potential in the aviation sector apart from the other opportunities. In this industry, experience and knowledge along with the passion to keep the customer at the heart of everything is considered hallmark of a great career.

“It is truly an honor to be selected by TnH as the most ‘Most Outstanding International Airline of the Year’. Thank you to all those who voted for us, we’re thrilled to bits. Fourteen years after we first flew from India, we’re still pioneering and offering travellers the best possible experience in the air. Innovation and forward thinking are such an integral part of what we do and how we live to our brand promise.”

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For the year ended 31^st December 2014, the Group is reporting a profit before tax and exceptional items of £14.4m, representing an improvement of £65.4m on the previous year’s financial performance.

The results confirm that Virgin Atlantic has delivered on the target it set in February 2013 to return to profit within two years. It is now looking to the future and positioning the business for future growth and sustained profitability whilst making significant investment in customer experience.

Calendar year ending December 2014 Group Performance at a glance:

• A Group pre-tax, pre-exceptional items, profit over 12 months of £14.4m, an improvement of £65.4m on the year ending December 2013 (£51.0m pre-tax loss)
• Group revenue of £2.9bn
• Airline unit revenue up 0.5% (up 3.5% at constant currency)
• 6,156,000 passengers flown
• Average revenue passenger load factors of 77.38%
• Airline unit operating costs flat year-on-year at constant currency
• Virgin Holidays recorded a profit for the year before tax and exceptional items of £5.7m, up £3m year on year, and increased revenue by 1.1%
• Cargo revenue down 1.8% year on year (up 3.1% at constant currency) with strong export demand from the UK

For the third consecutive year, passenger satisfaction scores have increased, with an 11% improvement since 2012. The airline’s on time performance remains high with 85.5% of flights departing within 15 minutes of schedule. Virgin Atlantic remains focused on delivering the best possible experience and service to its customers enhanced by a £300m investment in this area by 2018.

Chief Executive Craig Kreeger said:

 “We want to be the airline most loved by our customers by always putting them at the centre of everything we do. These profitable results mark the successful conclusion of our recovery period and have put firm foundations in place for the future. We are confident that we have the right fleet, network and partners in place to be more profitable than ever before by 2018.

“We had a clearly defined strategy to transform the financial performance of the business and everyone involved can be rightly proud that we delivered that in a rigorous timeframe, while investing in continuous improvements to our passengers’ experience. I would like to thank our customers for their support, and our people for delivering the exceptional customer service that remains uniquely Virgin Atlantic.”

Strategic changes in the business along with operational and cost efficiencies have driven the improved financial performance this year. In October, the airline took delivery of the first of its state of the art, fuel-efficient Boeing 787-9s, with seven more to follow in 2015 as part of a fleet regeneration programme.

Virgin Atlantic and its customers gained significant benefit from its joint venture partnership with Delta Air Lines, launched in January 2014. Over 4.5million passengers flew on joint venture services in its first year of operation and the two airlines expect this number to continue to grow in 2015. The partnership’s total number of code share routes recently increased to 484 and its peak daily transatlantic services will rise to 39 from summer 2015. This includes ten daily departures between London and New York – the world’s busiest business travel market.

The increased transatlantic flying follows a network review undertaken by Virgin Atlantic in 2014 which led to its exit from several loss-making routes. The airline also took the decision to withdraw its domestic operation Little Red, with flights between Heathrow and Manchester ceasing later this month and Heathrow and Edinburgh and Aberdeen stopping in September 2015. New routes will be launched this summer between Manchester and Atlanta, London Heathrow and Detroit, and London Gatwick and Tobago, as well as a series of seasonal flights between Belfast and Orlando and Glasgow and Las Vegas. There will also be increased frequency in services between Heathrow and major US destinations including San Francisco, Los Angeles, Atlanta and New York.

Virgin Holidays’ revenue and profit improvements were driven by a strong performance in its key North American market, where turnover grew by more than 10%, and disciplined cost control across the business. The company also enjoyed a four-point increase in its Net Promoter Score. During 2014, it implemented a new five-year plan to drive customer satisfaction, staff engagement and profitability to record levels by 2019.

Virgin Atlantic President, Sir Richard Branson, said: 

“I can’t think of a better way to complete our 30^th birthday year than with a return to profit. The team at Virgin Atlantic has done a great job in turning around the airline and has the right strategy to take the business from strength to strength.  Keeping our customers and our people at the heart of everything we do gives me great confidence in our future and I look forward to the next 30 years.”

Virgin Atlantic Head of India and Middle East, Nick Parker, said: 

“We have taken some tough decisions to transform the financial performance of our business and return to profitability in 2014 while ensuring that we continued to invest in areas that matter to our customers, delivering an 11% improvement in customer satisfaction since 2012.

We have been flying to India for 15 years and are really excited about the year ahead for our customers as we build on the success of 2014.  We plan to invest £300 million to further enhance our customer experience and we will be launching our brand new 787-9 Dreamliners later this month on the Delhi/London route with our latest cabin interior enhancements that will delight our customers.”

Virgin Atlantic launched the inaugural flight from Delhi-London (now daily, non-stop) in July 2000. Passengers may choose Upper Class, Premium Economy Class or Economy Class. Our India-based travellers play a significant role in our customer-experience enhancement plans, in which £300 million will be invested – and soon they’ll be able to enjoy our new Boing 787-9 Dreamliners, which will fly Delhi- London from later this month.

Our new fleet will be configured with 31 Upper Class seats, 35 Premium Economy seats and 198 Economy seats. Upper Class passengers will enjoy a new iteration of Virgin Atlantic’s iconic Upper Class Suite, which incorporates all the features that have proved so popular as well as some new design elements. There is a refreshed Premium Economy cabin, with an even more comfortable seat and a social space – the Wander Wall – where customers can stretch their legs and mingle with other passengers. Our Economy seat will be best in class: the Recaro 3620 model, no less. And travellers throughout the aircraft will benefit from Wi-Fi connectivity, plus the latest in in-flight entertainment and the most innovative, dynamic mood lighting.

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