Originally Posted by
Berealgetreal
You are right many did see him as the Messiah, personally I listened and gave him the benefit of the doubt as with any new employee. I became concerned when he purchased Skywest as I knew Alliance or Network were the pick of the bunch. I was indeed shouted down and told by one colleague I should leave because I wasn’t singing from the same song sheet.
Regardless, when I met him I treated him with respect and would have had I run into him on his last day. It’s just my opinion that the new CEO would have done a better job had he been afforded the opportunity 9 years ago. Maybe I’m wrong.
I’ve always believed Qf did a better job as they had that economy of scale you mention plus years more experience. I recall paxing one time on a QF 330 in uniform last minute and couldn’t believe how well I was treated, it was incredible they couldn’t do enough for me despite me being the opposition. I also noted how clean, quiet and calm the atmosphere was in the Qf terminals, I was certainly envious as the opposite is true at Virgin.
Anyway, there are a lot of valid comments on here but some are a little gleeful and I think this is concerning. If Virgin collapsed it would no doubt be replaced be a very low condition competitor with serious clout.
This is a very wise and well written comment. I have been known to be critical of VA on most occasions because of the frustration of seeing what could be such a good airline be a winner but which has been mismanaged by a very ego driven CEO who seems (I say 'seems') to have used the time there to get back at QF for not giving him the job... that might seem petty but when you add everything up he's done it did appear that he was trying to create a bigger QF to say "so there"... if correct, hardly a sound basis to run an airline on and I once heard from one person at QF that he was called "mini me" in some QF quarters. I travel more on QF but also use VA at times... thing is the country needs two profitable and well run companies. At the moment it has, sadly, one well run (mostly) and profitable (certainly) company and one basket case. It would be an odds on bet that PS would have done a better job... but then as I've observed before, so would Norman Gunston or Mr Bean.