At the risk of thread drift and for those that love to imply that we should bend over and take it like a man because there is a down turn, I would like to ask how much do you expect to claw back when times are good? In the recent boom time most workers conditions were dropping (maybe a little more money but at a cost of conditions) and or shifting onto one sided contracts. Aviation fared better than many areas.
When asking employees to take a cut in T&Cs, Ethical or moral managers would offer something in kind. You know share the risk with stock in equal value to your drop in T&Cs or lack of pay rise, promise to return to current conditions and catch up inflation at a agreed set of conditions etc with management sharing the same % of the pain.
In
VB & VA terms;
VB still has good load factors, 82% (I believe was recently announced). Its yield per seat is certainly down. The down turn has been an excellent lever to get
VB crew into the E-Jets and to VA on lower wages.
With out doubt VA cost money to start up but it also cost money to introduce the E-Jet. Both have a future.
There was a three year plan for VA to break even with . Given the customer base of the existing airlines on the route, I would have thought that a 57% load factor from inaugural flight to end of June was great. Secondhand information is that VA is doing much better than planned even with reduced yields.
Recently load factors been closer to 90% (but then there are seasonal reasons for that).
In acknowledged tough times MDs of public companies use the boards / public's / share analysts expectation of poorer performance to write down costs as much as possible so that there is minimal if any impact on share price. Its also a great time to screw down employees T & Cs, get rid of dead wood and trouble makers and fix the poor choices that resulted in the current structure. Its rare to see senior management suffer as much as the employees who make the money for the company.
Does anyone honestly think
VB was profitable on day one. Money was put aside to start VA. Is that being eroded faster than expect by VA - probably not. Opportunistic write downs might be assisting the reported loss.