Virgin Australia on track for more success in 2012

Virgin Australia's CEO John Borghetti was quietly confident about prospects for next year when he addressed the airline's AGM today.

Highlights of his presentation included:

* The domestic business is already seeing benefits from the new alliances; with interline and codeshare traffic onto the Virgin Australia domestic network more than doubling year on year.

* Capacity share with alliance partners in and out of Australia will be equal to that of the largest global alliance in this country, oneworld.

* By the end of Financial Year 2011 VA had secured an additional 39 new accounts and there have been improvements since then.

* Corporate and government customers made up 13 per cent of total revenue, up from 10 per cent in FY 2010.

* From the 18th of January Business Class will be across the domestic network; and feedback on the product has been "extremely positive".

* By the end of the year, the international product V Australia and Pacific Blue will also operate under the Virgin Australia name.

* There are now 2.75 million Velocity program members, up from 2.5 million at the end of FY 2011.

* The airline will be providing up to 250 new cabin crew roles mainly based in NSW, which will bring the total new cabin crew roles for this calendar year to around 400.

* A cadet pilot training program will be launched in Australia next year.

* By early next year the re-fit of the domestic Boeing 737s with the new business and economy class product will be complete.

* By the end of FY 2012 the airline will reveal the revamp of the international aircraft.

* VA will launch new lounges in the Gold Coast and Mackay, and will commence work on a new flagship lounge at Sydney domestic airport.

* The airline will introduce a new Sabre reservation system, the SabreSonicCustomer Sales & Service solution.

In terms of outlook for 2012, John Borghetti simply said that, "While we continue to expect an improvement in underlying performance for this Financial Year, we are unable to provide clear guidance due to the uncertain economic environment."

It was an understated declaration of the amount that Borghetti has achieved, in partnership with a strong executive team, in 18 months.