7:00PM MARCH 23, 2022
Virgin Australia has lost a string of senior managers since its sale to US private equity firm Bain Capital as a result of the furious pace of restructuring and industry-wide job retention challenges.
Many of those who have left answered directly to CEO Jayne Hrdlicka, including chief pilot *Michael Fitzgerald, group medical officer Sara Souter, head of revenue Russell Shaw and his successor Paul Carroll.
Captain Fitzgerald had spent almost 20 years with Virgin after joining as a first officer on the Boeing 737 in 2003.
Although he declined to comment on the reasons for leaving Virgin Australia, it is understood his role had become almost unbearably difficult due to the Covid crisis and pressure to renegotiate pilots’ work agreements.
Late on Wednesday, it was revealed his job would be filled by Qantas’s head of fleet operations Captain Alex Scamps, at a date to be confirmed.
Virgin Australia also farewelled Dr Souter in September last year, Mr Shaw and Mr Carroll in October last year and February this year respectively, Ms Watts in January and head of airline operations and technology Brendan O’Kane late last year.
Dr Souter has since joined the Qantas medical team, while Mr Carroll returned to a previous role with AirAsia after less than a year with Virgin Australia.
Several other experienced managers have departed since the start of the year to the surprise and dismay of colleagues.
People safety and wellbeing manager Liv Hewitt left in February after 14 years with Virgin; performance and improvement specialist Natalie Maia departed after 8½ years; customer experience manager Caitlin Malone called it quits after 17 years, and team travel leader Kerri Homann left after nine years.
The intense pace of restructuring and push to return Virgin Australia to profit under Ms Hrdlicka was considered a factor in the loss of talent, with the airline’s owners understood to be planning to re-list the company on the ASX next year.
The timeline for the initial public offering was pushed out from late 2022 after the Omicron variant ravaged airline schedules in the important Christmas and summer holiday period.
Ms Hrdlicka recently pointed out that, since she took over as CEO, $300m in cost savings had been made through restructuring and new employee work agreements. She also indicated Virgin was in the process of filling hundreds of positions as air travel took off again in response to an easing of Covid restrictions.
For some former employees, fears of a change in workplace *culture were realised after Paul Scurrah was dumped as CEO when the New York-based Bain Capital bought the airline in November 2020.
One former manager said since that time the decision had been made not to bother with the annual employee survey due to the expectation “no one would come up with anything positive”.
But a Virgin Australia spokeswoman said the airline continued to “successfully build its team and attract great people” such as Captain Scamps.
“We are lucky enough to have a strong brand that people want to work with and for, and we offer a blend of the type of work, culture, focus areas and non-financial benefits people are looking for,” the spokeswoman said.
Across the leadership and management teams, turnover was considered “normal” at about 5 per cent.
Qantas had also experienced a high staff turnover in certain parts of the airline, particularly technology, where highly skilled workers were in demand in other industries.
Last month Qantas CEO Alan Joyce revealed Qantas had lost close to a third of its technology workers, due to the Covid crisis making the aviation industry a much less attractive employer.
In response, Qantas was offering the incentive of 1000 shares in the airline, worth more than $5000 on the current share price, providing the employee remained with the company until mid-2023 and the airline achieved its Covid recovery targets.
Across the Tasman, Air New Zealand gave its employees $1000 worth of shares in the airline last year, in recognition of the personal hardship they endured during the Covid crisis.
CEO Greg Foran, a former Walmart US chief executive, said one of the lessons that was reinforced to him over the course of the pandemic was the importance of a positive workplace culture.
“It trumps everything else. It allows you to operate, it allows you to build a great plan,” Mr Foran said.
“There’s no doubt that we’re seeing a little bit more turnover (in staff) in some of the non-airline areas but this is a wonderful business, a wonderful brand and the team that weathered the storm really well is looking forward to the bright side as we begin to reopen.”