While this could delay use of the airline's five new Boeing 737s
due for delivery from the US by late May, analysts remain
unconcerned over any major impact to the airline's long-term
performance.
"Virgin hasn't chosen to release anything to the market; their
prospectus forecasts still stand as far as we're concerned," CommSec
industrials analyst Matt Crowe said.
Another analyst, who did not wish to be named, said that if the
delay did have an impact, it would only be "a matter of weeks rather
than a matter of months".
Virgin Blue chief executive Brett Godfrey said today the
airline's planes were as safe to travel on as those of rival
airline, Qantas Airways Ltd.
Mr Godfrey said if there was any doubt about the safety of Virgin
Blue planes he would ground them.
Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA)
spokesman Peter Gibson agreed, saying Virgin's growth spurt - from
two planes in August 2000 - had meant its maintenance infrastructure
was struggling to keep up.
"Right now, it's very much business as usual," Mr Gibson said.
"We've been in and done an audit of Virgin Blue earlier this year
as part of our audit process (and) needed to take no
action."
Boeing's Australian
director of communications Ken Morton today confirmed the
manufacturer had been asked by Virgin Blue to help out in
development of its maintenance procedures.
"As we would with all of our customers, we are providing
assistance with them to institute the procedures required to comply
with the regulations," Mr Morton said.
"It's a relatively common occurrence for an airlines to draw on
our expertise and depth of experience."
Meanwhile, Qantas' mainline domestic operations and QantasLink
both surpassed Virgin Blue in January regarding their on-time
performance, according to statistics from the Bureau of Transport
and Regional Economics.
Goldman Sachs JBWere said the data indicated Virgin Blue's
network on-time performance slipped to 84.1 per cent in January,
from 85.9 per cent in December.
This compared with an improvement in Qantas' network to 87.9 per
cent, compared to 84.6 per cent the previous month.
For the three months ending January 2004, the broker said Virgin
Blue outperformed Qantas on the on-time departure metric, but for
on-time arrivals Qantas was the better of the two.
"We do not see the BTRE data as having a direct impact on
earnings," its research report said.
"However, we see Virgin Blue's focus of improving on-time
performance as attempting to erode the product differential
between itself and Qantas and part of a broader strategy to
increase its share of higher yielding business traffic."
Credit Suisse First Boston said the data demonstrated "an
increased effort by Qantas to improve its OTP in an attempt to
reduce the loss of corporate travel share to Virgin Blue".
"OTP is regarded as a key reason or business travellers choosing
which airline to fly."
UBS estimated Virgin Blue's domestic market share increased by
one per cent in January to 32.8 per cent.
Virgin Blue shares closed up one cent at $2.51 while Qantas
shares gained eight cents or 2.26 per cent to $3.62.