Originally Posted by
Gurnard
Can't see how EasyJet Europe is a British company. (EasyJet originally was a British until Brexit fears gave them other ideas.) Prior to Covid-19 pretty well all flights from UK bases were operated by UK registered aircraft, not Austrian. Seems a distinction between EZY and EJU. The EasyJet website distinguished between the two e.g. "Your flight is being operated by Easy Jet Europe." (Sorry this is on the Virgin page but it's responding to an idea raised.)
easyJet is in a somewhat unique position as the Haji-Ioannou family own 35% of the company and are both UK and Cypriot citizens, thus enabling them to count as UK owners for the UK business and EU citizens for the Europe business.It is entirely possible for companies to have subsidiaries in individual countries and to make use of schemes in each of those countries. There are relatively few industries where
ownership is the important requirement. British Steel is owned by a Chineese company, for example. Brico Dépôt is owned by Kingfisher, a UK company who also own B&Q. Yet both of those companies are making use of the respective government schemes in the UK and France, no-one is batting an eye. Shareholder nationality is important for airlines because they are linked to traffic traffic rights, employment contracts, tax issues, etc are all secondary issues.
Both easyJet and Virgin are getting caught up by their relationship with billionaire owners/investors/founders. The reality is that Virgin Atlantic does not have collateral to put against a loan - commercial or government. They were at the beginning of their turnaround after several years of heavy losses and many assets have been mortgaged or sold and leased back to sustain the airline.
Many comments on the board suggest VS might retrench to LHR and cull LGW and MAN - I would argue the leisure focussed MCO and Caribbean operation is more likely to be profitable, it is essentially charter for Virgin Holidays. That might be the first to return, perhaps with high density A350s or 787s, as a one-type fleet instead of the 747s, which might be too large for the new reality. Using that logic the A330s might be best, they should be cheaper to finance, but cost more in fuel and maintenance. The gamble is how long fuel will remain a depressed prices.