Virgin America curbs expansion plans

Virgin America will scale back an order for Airbus SAS jets and delay the delivery of other newer models as it seeks to slow down its expansion plans, Bloomberg News is reporting.

The airline, which is partly owned by British mogul Richard Branson, will now take delivery of 10 Airbus A320 planes, down from 30, in 2015 and 2016. It will also defer the delivery for 30 A320 neo-model jets to 2020 through 2022 from the original dates of 2016 through 2019.

Last month, the airline disclosed that it was reducing capacity from January through March, the first time it's done so since starting up in 2007. The company has also offered employees voluntary short-term leave.

"During the summer we started looking at whether it still made sense to grow as fast as we were planning on, given fuel prices and what I'll say is a modest economic growth climate in the U.S.," Chief Executive Officer David Cush told Bloomberg. "You don't invest the capital if you can't earn an adequate return."

The airline reported that its third-quarter net loss widened to $12.6 million from $3.3 million a year earlier. Revenue jumped 27 percent to $368 million, Bloomberg reported.

Virgin America will eliminate some unprofitable flights during the first three months of 2013 but will restore the service in April when demand tends to improve, Cush told Bloomberg.

However, the airline won't drop any cities, though it will reduce the number of departures in cities such as Boston, Cush said.

Among the cities that Virgin America flies to are San Francisco, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and New York's John F. Kennedy airport.

"The simple math out of that is we think we're big enough right now for the time being," Cush told Bloomberg. "The rapid growth we've had for the last few years is going to come to a stop."