A Virgin America Airbus taxies at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport last summer. (Terry Maxon/DMN)
Virgin America, which reported its first profitable year in 2013, reported net income of $41.6 million in the third quarter, up 24.2 percent from the $33.5 million it earned in the same quarter of 2013.
But as a more important barometer, Virgin’s nine-month net income this year is $56.2 million. Last year, it had lost $4.0 million through the first nine months and needed a fourth-quarter profit of $14.2 million to show a $10.1 million net profit for the year.
Virgin America is not a publicly traded company and is not required to report its financial numbers. But it has filed papers for an initial public offering and has been making public its monthly traffic numbers and quarterly financial numbers for some time.
The San Francisco-based carrier said its operating margin was 12.9 percent, up 1.4 points from third quarter 2013. It attributed the improvement to higher unit revenues, up 5.5 percent.