This could well be the most perfect union in global aviation.
On Tuesday, Virgin Australia announced it was forming a bilateral alliance with Gulf carrier Qatar Airways. The two airlines will code-share on each other’s flights and extend loyalty benefits to each other’s customers.
Top-tier Velocity members transiting through Hamad International Airport can now opt out of forcible gynaecological examinations and other unique cultural experiences inflicted upon regular travellers at the major hub that scores of South Asian slave labourers died building.
The new partnership was announced without a formal start date, suggesting the finer particulars are yet to be hammered out.
We can just imagine Virgin’s emir
Jayne Hrdlicka wrangling clause-by-clause with Qatar’s truly inimitable chief executive, His Excellency
Akbar Al Baker.
A cartoonish pair indeed. Neither is famed for working well with others, exuding human sensitivity or being able to read a room.There’s every chance His Excellency initially mistook Hrdlicka for the tea lady, given his pungent views about women and their place. Al Baker was
asked at a Sydney conference in 2018 if a female could run Qatar Airways. “Of course it has to be led by a man, because it is a very challenging position”.
The previous year he complained at an industry gathering that “you are always being served by grandmothers on American carriers”, boasting that “the average age of my cabin crew is only 26 years”.
You could send him back to the 1970s, where he’d still be a conspicuous dinosaur. He is so appalling you sometimes have to wonder if he’s putting it on.
Virgin Australia is currently in the Federal Court defending a claim of bullying and harassment brought by the chief pilot Hrdlicka sacked on medical grounds. The Civil Aviation Safety Authority will undoubtedly be watching that case with interest.
Multiple reports of Virgin’s dysfunctional culture – including numerous payouts to bullying complainants – have established that Virgin provides one of the nation’s most hostile workplaces.
Qatar has no such issues. That’s the beauty of a master-slave labour system.
Virgin Australia held an all-staff promotion last month in which third prize was a week of paid leave, second prize was a weekend on Hamilton Island and the first prize was an awkward ham sambo with Hrdlicka. This warped hierarchy of winnings explains so much about the company’s cultural issues.
Word on next year’s top prize has already reached us: it’s a pile of Al Baker’s ironing.
One hundred pairs of Virgin pyjamas were also handed out. Bear in mind, Virgin ended all long-haul operations in March 2020, and now operates only narrow body aircraft with upright seats. Virgin passengers ain’t seen no PJs since private equity stormed the cockpit. Way to make long-suffering crew feel special: a nylon tracksuit that’s been sitting in a warehouse for two years waiting for a ride to the tip.