LIFO was not observed. Virgin had no redundancy policy at all before 9/11. They naively believed it could never happen to them. So when the 747C and 320 fleets were scrapped overnight, redundancy in fleet was announced to the horror of all affected. It took several rounds of lengthy negotiations between the VACC and the company to work a solution where LIFO would be observed, but consessions had to be made. But by then, lots of people on the Classic, 320 and some on the 340 had already gone. The 744 guys were threatened and told to expect it once Classic guys had been trained to replace them, but the truth was that the company had transferred a lot of the Classic work to the 744 and couldn't afford to lose anyone off that fleet. the 744 guys were told to expect redundacy, then unpaid leave and finally were told their jobs were safe.
No one on the 744 was made redundant. I know. I was the most junior person in VS at 9/11. I would still be there now if I hadn't taken the voluntary redundancy package.
Good luck to all at VS.