Virgin Galactic dropped yet another bomb on the entire Virgin Galactic investment community. The announcement by Virgin Galactic was a shocker not only for the investors but for the potential space travelers.
Virgin Galactic Delays Commercial Flights Until 2023
It has been a while since Virgin Galactic successfully carried out its test flight into space with Richard Branson, the founder of Virgin.
Right after the successful test flight into space, it was announced that Virgin Galactic will soon carry commoners to space in commercial flights. Alas, things have not materialized even to this day, and it seems that people wanting to visit space will need to wait longer.
The company has announced that it has postponed its launch of commercial flights. This time, the delay is for three months and it is going to happen somewhere around the second quarter of 2023.
The officials have revealed that they are in the process of refurbishing the carrier aircraft for commercial flights. However, they are expecting delays in the particular process.
Due to this, they have decided to postpone the launch of the commercial flights by another three months.
Back-to-Back Delays
The company has been carrying out successful test flights since 2021. However, when it comes to launching actual commercial flights, the company is being very hesitant.
Initially, Virgin Galactic had announced that the first commercial flight would leave for space in the fourth quarter. Then the plan was postponed until the first quarter and now, it has been delayed by another quarter.
Virgin Galactic Shares Crashed Tremendously
Right after the official announcement of yet another delay, the share prices for Virgin Galactic went south. The trading price of the Virgin Galactic shares dipped almost 15% in the latest trading session.
This is because the uncertainty is constantly rising among the investors who once had very high hopes for the company. Now the situation has taken a bad turn following two major delays reported by Virgin Galactic.
At the time of writing, the share prices for Virgin Galactic are down to $8.19 per share. In the past 12 months, Virgin Galactic’s share prices have dipped more than 70%.
It is very important for the company to fulfill its claim and promise to the investors as well as the potential passengers. Other companies such as SpaceX and Blue Origin are also aiming to do the same.
Therefore, Virgin Galactic has to do things faster and prove that it is able to send commercial flights to space before any other space company.
In the second quarter, Virgin Galactic has already reported a loss of $93 million in the form of adjusted EBITDA loss. It was much larger than the loss of $77 million the company incurred in the first quarter.