Potential CEO for Virgin.... 🤔🤔

[Biatch]

https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/national/huge-bills-run-up-for-travel-and-luxuries/news-story/71e9f553a38c27588c92206a9aee3376?sv=189c0d5e15497451c7cbcc4d dcd291ee

Interesting read on executive spending involving Paul Scurrah who is potentially being touted for the CEO gig at VA. Also, when you take into account the size of the restructuring after he left (“senior management group reduced from 77 to 32 and $43m of costs taken out of the business”) it begs the question, WTF was he doing when there to save the business. God help Virgin if this is a “safe pair of hands”!!

[The Bullwinkle]

Apparently after a worldwide search, they haven’t been able to find anybody suitable for the role so JB might just have to reign a little longer!
God help us all...........

[Section28- BE]

" involving Paul Scurrah who is potentially being touted for the CEO gig at VA."

Seriously...................., Wow- ex AN way-back................. 'I', am given to understand.

But, do you Reckon...............?????, seriously- would he would have "the" Skill-Set/Track Miles....??????

To drive 'this show' out of where it is Now....????? WOW- once more.........

Rgds
S28- BE

[JPJP]

Seriously...................., Wow- ex AN way-back................. 'I', am given to understand.

But, do you Reckon...............?????, seriously- would he would have "the" Skill-Set/Track Miles....??????

To drive 'this show' out of where it is Now....????? WOW- once more.........

Rgds
S28- BE

I’m impressed that your new post is the result of earnest editing. I can only wonder what the last one looked like ?

Break/

Is the Daily Telegraph a rag ? I’m not familiar. Did they expect them to take trains everywhere and not use hotels ? Biatch - why did you post this on a pilot website ? Stay out of the wine.

[Superman1]

Shock horror he had to get a taxi instead of the train....... maybe he was running late to a meeting and didn’t want to do the 5 minute walk either side of the station or it was pelting rain..... FFS tall poppy syndrome in Australia is a real joke, people should be inspired by successful people not jealous of them.

[Biatch]

Why? Because within the airline that is Virgin there is much speculation and opinion and interest towards the subject of who the new coming CEO may be.... and this is one of the contenders. Granted this paper is a “rag”, but some of the facts stated do raise questions regarding performance and judgement...

Did this post not interest you? Don’t read/comment on it perhaps?

Im pretty sure I’ve seen other CEO and board members discussed on this forum before.... ����

[Icarus2001]

The article was from 2012, almost seven years ago.

The politics of envy is a well worn trope for these rubbish newspapers.

Example "senior bosses spent more than $100,000 on lunches, dinners and catering, and on one occasion bought up $406 worth of alcohol for a network planning and strategy meeting." This is meaningless without context. In what period of time did they spend $100K? A week, a month, a year? A medium size staff Christmas party costs around $40,000 without even trying too hard.

Until we KNOW who the JB successor is, all these posts are pretty meaningless.

[Section28- BE]

Tad fragile, there JPJP......????

The Question- remains/stands.

Rgds
S28

[The Bullwinkle]

FFS tall poppy syndrome in Australia is a real joke, people should be inspired by successful people not jealous of them.

And most Australians would agree, provided that the success is genuine and deserved.
But what we see these days are CEO’s who become “successful” at the expense of the real workers. (and it also depends on your definition of success)
Sadly, Herb Kelleher passed away in January. He was a great CEO and a true leader in every way.
I can’t imagine pilots chipping in to buy any airline CEO’s a Harley Davidson these days but that’s what they did for Herb, because there was mutual respect.
Unfortunately, it’s very unlikely that Virgin will ever find a CEO of that calibre but I’m sure the workforce would appreciate any CEO who actually just cared about them and the success of the company, rather than their own personal “success”.

[Buster Hyman]

It appears we have a winner!

[SpyderPig]

Scurrah confirmed as new CEO

[Icarus2001]

https://www.ausbt.com.au/john-borghetti-leaves-virgin-australia-in-march-as-new-ceo-takes-over

So it is confirmed.

Change over in March, nine months early.

Good luck.

[The Bullwinkle]

Great to finally have a date for JB to go but not really sure that Scurrah’s the best man for the job.

[SYDnewby]

wasn't he at Queensland Rail when all the stuff ups started ?

[patty50]

What part did he play in the lead up to QR’s disastrous driver shortage? When one bloke there is doing 950 hours overtime on top of ~1800 normal time he’ll be wondering why anyone complains doing only 900 flying hours a year.

[Gate_15L]

What part did he play in the lead up to QR’s disastrous driver shortage? When one bloke there is doing 950 hours overtime on top of ~1800 normal time he’ll be wondering why anyone complains doing only 900 flying hours a year.
He quit QR in 2011... So very little I suspect...
Best to look at his history at Dubai Ports Australia.

[Street garbage]

He quit QR in 2011... So very little I suspect...
Best to look at his history at Dubai Ports Australia.
One of my mates is a driver for QR, their negotiations with workers are best described as adversarial..with major reductions in safety to lower costs part of the "negotiations".
Good luck.

[777Nine]

Let's see what he can do and how can appease all the different stakeholders.

[Biatch]

Well well... a rumour came true... incredible... maybe not so meaningless to discuss on a professional pilot rumour network...

[The Bullwinkle]

Let's see what he can do and how can appease all the different stakeholders.

Well he’s already facing an uphill battle with the troops who all wanted John Thomas back as he was the obvious choice and the only person who could realistically undo Borghetti’s damage.

[patty50]

He quit QR in 2011... So very little I suspect...
Best to look at his history at Dubai Ports Australia.

In a job where people often stay for 20+ years a crippling shortage should be seen years in advance.

Surely Virgin pilots will be concerned they’ll be dealing with someone who brings a wharfies mindset to industrial relations. Pilots might need some MUA help on their side.

Business class could still be a while away.

[The Bullwinkle]

Surely Virgin pilots will be concerned they’ll be dealing with someone who brings a wharfies mindset to industrial relations.

Not really. Plenty of Captains are already leaving for China.
This creates promotion opportunities for F.O.s and once they’ve got their 500 hours or so command, they’re off to China as well.
If his attitude towards pilots is adversarial, it will just hasten the exodus and encourage Captains who weren’t thinking about China to reconsider.

[porch monkey]

"Meet the new boss, same as the old boss", as the song goes..

[Icarus2001]

someone who brings a wharfies mindset to industrial relations. Unlikely that he has a wharfies mindset. Perhaps you mean the mindset of the owner of a stevedore company?


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998_Australian_waterfront_dispute

[wheels_down]

How are all the John Thomas fanatics going to live with themselves!

[The Bullwinkle]

How are all the John Thomas fanatics going to live with themselves!

Mostly just going to be disappointed that the company has missed an amazing opportunity.

[Oakape]

Corporate office in Sydney? I was under the impression that the Sydney office was specifically created for JB, as he resided there. So why wouldn’t it be closed down now & the new CEO
be full time in Brisbane, since he actually lives there?

[Goat Whisperer]

“Plenty of captains” leaving for China? BS. About one in every 2 months. Far more SOs and FOs joining QF.

[The Bullwinkle]

“Plenty of captains” leaving for China? BS.

​​​​​​​Watch this space.........

[dirty deeds]

Watch this space.........

JT didn’t get the gong.......Bullwinkle R U OK?

What you guys should have done is run a survey to get Paul Scurrah the CEO gig........would have sealed his fate!

[The Bullwinkle]

JT didn’t get the gong.......Bullwinkle R U OK?

Yes, I’m fine. Thanks for asking.
My concern is for the company! Not so sure it’s going to be O K.

[Icarus2001]

When has it been?

[AerialPerspective]

And most Australians would agree, provided that the success is genuine and deserved.
But what we see these days are CEO’s who become “successful” at the expense of the real workers. (and it also depends on your definition of success)
Sadly, Herb Kelleher passed away in January. He was a great CEO and a true leader in every way.
I can’t imagine pilots chipping in to buy any airline CEO’s a Harley Davidson these days but that’s what they did for Herb, because there was mutual respect.
Unfortunately, it’s very unlikely that Virgin will ever find a CEO of that calibre but I’m sure the workforce would appreciate any CEO who actually just cared about them and the success of the company, rather than their own personal “success”.




Spot on BW... look closely at many of Australia's CEOs and they are stunning examples of the Dunning-Krueger Effect... people rising through the ranks because they appear confident when in reality, that confidence is the result of being incompetent, thus unable to recognise what competence is, ergo appearing more confident than others. Whereas, skilled and reasonable people who check and double check and don't make decisions like a stone skipping across a pond - i.e. who are genuine - don't always appear as confident and thus don't always succeed because they have something called humility. Give me a John Menadue any day, a guy who fought with the Board NOT to have a pay rise and wrote directly to the staff of QF to tell them that the Board was trying to force him out on the pretence of some re-sizing of the job... note, he was paid about $180K pa and the Board wanted to increase it to $250K pa - to "attract the best talent"... where have we heard that before???
Note: this doesn't mean any of us posting here are factotums or have all the answers either - but don't have to, generally Australian's have a pretty well developed BS radar - yes, some staff are fickle and will tell a procession of managers behind each's back that they 'have their full support' and so on but most are pretty capable of summing up what is BS and what isn't and who's genuine and who's a liar in it for what they can get out of it. It's sad that this happens because in my experience in many airlines, it's the front line who really buy in to the product and customer excellence and they often get let down by half-ar/ed management who don't 'walk the talk'.
I left a company a few years ago and another vacancy occurred in a large scale job in charge of hundreds of staff at two locations in neighbouring States. Anyone familiar with the people available would have concluded that perhaps there was no one suitable, not enough experience, judgement or capability. The job ended up going to the WORST performer of the entire pool of people - I mean seriously the WORST, with a track record of pathetic performance and questionable antics with junior staff - of course the organisation/people/industry shall remain nameless but it just proved to me that it is very rarely the best people that get promoted and those that are sub-standard, fill the vacancies below them with also-rans... and anyone with talent or capability is drummed out.
I've heard this sort of thing happens at Virgin. I hope the new CEO can stop that because it has a lot of potential. Yes, I've criticised VA in the past but only because I want to see a viable industry with two strong players.
Agree about Herb... what a great guy... and a sad loss...

[hawk_eye]

It certainly will be an interesting time for Paul Scurrah.

In my opinion the foundation is there for VA to be a great airline. Love him or hate him, JB has put in place a base to be built on. The Lounges, The J class product (particularly on the Wide Bodies), the Frequent Flyer program, the alliances with some pretty significant overseas airlines to name a few. Overall JB has enacted changing VA from a low cost operator to a full service airline that has a significant Narrow Body fleet, he has doubled the WB fleet, started a Turbo Prop operation, bought a charter / regional jet operation (VARA) and bought a low cost carrier to directly compete with JQ.

All of that being said - quite a lot of issues need to be sorted over the medium term, and this will probably have to be done under Scurrah’s watch.

To start naming a few:

- I believe that the wide body leases for VA aircraft are up in the middle of the 2020s. The decision on WB fleet replacement could be the single most significant capital expenditure decision Scurrah may make. Does he even bother trying to replace the WBs or decide that it isn’t worth the pain? Does he just try and push out the leases for another 5 years, but by that stage the aircraft will be approaching 20 years old? If he consolidates the WB into one type, does he get a few more for further expansion and consolidation into Asia and the US?

- The F100 replacement. I don’t know the specifics but given the engine issues and the limited parts availability for the F100 in general, I can’t imagine these will be around for too much longer. I guess the Alliance flying could also fall under this bracket, as I would assume that if QF ever got a majority stake in QQ, then VA would surely terminate this arrangement. But the question would be who would pick up the not insignificant amount of flying QQ does for VA at the moment. Could it be VARA in QLD too with its own 100 seat jet?

- The 73 Max order - will he exercise the options the company has on additional aircraft? What models will he get - The 73-8 or the -10? If he gets the Max10 - does he be bold and put lie flat seats in it and run those between East Coast and PH (and other longer sectors - say DPS or Pacific) where you could offer a very good J class produc, but not have the significant costs associated with running WBs on 4 hour sectors?

- Is it really worth the bother of running an ATR operation with 6 aircraft?

- Will he give TT fleet replacement the nudge it needs? Will TT expand and take on JQ on the Trans Tasman stuff it does?

- Do the systems in place at VA behind the scenes actually do an adequate job? It seems as though the ability to recover from disrupt at the moment isn’t great.

If you make some of these decisions correctly, you could save the company a fortune. Make that same decision but it turns out incorrectly - then the financial position of the Company could be really hurt. And how does he increase revenue in a very tight market? His time at QR saw customer satisfaction sky rocket - perhaps that is part of the parcel.

Some significant decisions definitely need to be made!



-