Virgin decision making at its finest...
Two variants (500 & 600) are costing money through inefficiencies, so they decide to remove the -500 from service (but don't think about the training implications involving converting their pilots on delta courses in Asia).
Moranbah is a non-profitable route, so they cut it from their own operations and give it away to Alliance. Alliance take Gladstone, Emerald, Bundy etc. with arms wide open. However, can't get an exemption to fly jets into Moranbah. QLink must be loving it.
So what do Virgin do? Unpack an ATR 72-500 from NZ storage (which they're still paying lease costs on) and give it to Hevilift to operate charters on their behalf. Does this really save them money?
Or they could have saved themselves the pain of a mass crew exodus and increased training costs by just leaving one or two airframes in Brisbane to cover a reduced schedule.
They have the crew in Brisbane to fly it. Didn't they just sign contracts to remain in Brisbane and commute south to operate? How does that fit into the future EBA?