Australia's second-largest airline has refrained from giving specific earnings guidance for the new financial year - matching bigger rival Qantas yesterday - because of the uncertain economic conditions. Virgin will only say that it expects an ''improvement in underlying financial performance''. A day after Qantas more than doubled profits to $249 million, the airline formerly known as Virgin Blue reported a full-year loss of $68 million for the year to June, compared with a $21 million profit a year earlier.