Tigerair fleet change to B737.

[wheels_down]

8.

So basically Tiger is being cut in half.

I imagine the entire operation being based from Tullamarine.

Bit of a leg up for the Star here.

[Double_Clutch]

Interesting reading the financials on the ASX.....

[Berealgetreal]

Originally Posted by das Uber Soldat

Assuming that's true, what's the total fleet size after this adjustment?

8 737NG’s.

Anyone know where the 320’s go? Leased owned? Parked in desert next to the rest of the exited fleet?

[wheels_down]

About 100 pilots and 400 Cabin crew this will impact

Can Virgin use these 100 odd pilots elsewhere?

If not, I hope they look after seniority in the Airbus fleet. Obviously I don’t really see it fair that 10-15 year Pilots still on the Airbus get given the boot for the large amount of newer 737s pilots that joined in recent years. Nothing against the new joiners, but essentially the top 100 Seniority should remain. Largely, this is all crew prior to any introduction of the 737.

I mean look after your most loyal first right? Considering these guys have been dragged through the $hit ten times over than new hires.

[Green.Dot]

Problem is when a company has no money to pay for more senior pilots to do conversion courses on to 737 I suspect you can ignore the seniority list and there is nothing Fair Work can do about it. VA is bleeding and has to stop spending everywhere possible. I hope I am wrong

[burned_out]

Tigerair, the arse end of VA

Terrible mismanagement of the company, MILLIONS wasted on an ineffective 737 fleet change, and the corona virus is the perfect time to axe staff for the 'snakes in suits'... must have been the Airbus fleet costing money hey boys, or your need to keep your high wages!

Thanks for the nothing promises chief. They were asked 1 month ago about redundancies and base closures, and their answer was it's all dandy.... not expecting any of it!
No plan B, just axing staff and relying on a grounded aircraft as a plan. F*ckwits.

I'm glad that our illustrious overpaid chief pilot got a better job "that was to good to refuse" just before this announcement!
Rat's jumping ship.... I'm sure with a bonus as well.

Bunch of hypocrites. The lot of them

[Ollie Onion]

So what is happening? Is talk of redundancy at Tiger accurate or speculation.

[Ollie Onion]

Really sorry to hear that, good luck, hopefully it will be managed better than just redundancy.

[Servo]

Originally Posted by burned_out

Tigerair, the arse end of VA

Terrible mismanagement of the company, MILLIONS wasted on an ineffective 737 fleet change, and the corona virus is the perfect time to axe staff for the 'snakes in suits'... must have been the Airbus fleet costing money hey boys, or your need to keep your high wages!

Thanks for the nothing promises chief. They were asked 1 month ago about redundancies and base closures, and their answer was it's all dandy.... not expecting any of it!
No plan B, just axing staff and relying on a grounded aircraft as a plan. F*ckwits.

I'm glad that our illustrious overpaid chief pilot got a better job "that was to good to refuse" just before this announcement!
Rat's jumping ship.... I'm sure with a bonus as well.

Bunch of hypocrites. The lot of them

They certainly did. In fact via email as well as the phone conference. A such this corona virus has been a "savior" for poor management and restructuring. They will just blame EVERYTHING on that.

Never waste a good crisis - Winston Churchill.

Good luck boys and girls. No consolation, but remember that it was not your doing. Didnt help flying Virgin 737 and Tiger A320 out of the same port at the same time with low loads in both.

[PPRuNeUser0182]

I truly feel sick thinking about how today's news must be affecting you guys (and any others) right now caught up in everything that's going on. I sincerely wish you all the best in however which way this plays out...

[PoppaJo]

Originally Posted by Capt Basil Brush

If they are talking forced redundancies, I assume it would be via the seniority list. Have they said how redundancies would be done?

The EBA is a little murky around that one. They did have a large influx of Pilots arrive at the time the 737 arrived. So if its via Senority List, essentially you would be making a large chunk of the current 737 Team Redundant, and a large chunk of the The Airbus Team remain. However, you then have no 737 Pilots. But that is really not the issue for the longer serving Airbus folks, why is it their problem that 737 conversion was left to last in Sydney and Brisbane, and many were sent there to keep the Airbus side of the business going. But they then need to train the remaining 100 odd new Pilots, all of whom are new to type. I am sure no matter what, it will be an absolute shambles however they attempt it, as like with everything they do there.

53.10 To avoid doubt, a Pilot covered by this Agreement cannot be required to give up their position or base because of redundancies in the Virgin Australia Wide Body, Narrow Body, New Zealand based operations or Virgin Australia Regional operations or other Group Pilots integrated on the Virgin Australia Group Pilots’ List. A Pilot covered by this Agreement can only be made redundant if a position covered by this Agreement is made redundant.

[Brakerider]

At absolute worst, they should be making the newly hired cadets redundant and offering ATR and SO positions to affected crew. I’m sure most 320 drivers would be qualified to Capt the ATR.

[QldPilotGuy]

Ok guys and girls, i'm sorry but a rant is about to be issued so if you aren't interested hop of this ride.

Tiger Pilots & Crew were notified of this massive reduction via the general public ASX Half Yearly results. Many crew were in the air having departed pre-announcement and landed with 50 msgs on their phones telling them from other crew that they were all out of a job. This is AFTER the Virgin CEO personally stated that there would be NO Tiger base closures and no redundancy because Tiger was an integral part of the future Virgin Group framework. (in person on board the plane)
Why on earth would you make the announcement that you need to do route reviews and reduce your fleet size but instead of touching VA Mainline where ALL the losses have been occurring for the last decade, but THEN you axe the part of the company that has been producing profits and solid loads before the idiotic fleet transition occurred.
ARE YOU SERIOUS ! Why would you not reduce the VA Fleet by 10 aircraft and do a 1 for 1 replacement so that you can run Tiger as a single fleet airline and run it to its potential ? Or why would you not run 4 B737's out of both BNE and MEL so that you could still target the JQ part of the market ?
Tiger has literally only just checked to line the last hire and here VA are stepping in and culled 100 Pilots all trained and qualified on the A320 and they say that all options were looked at and this was the only way forward.

I have been a proud loyalist of the entire VA group and honestly thought with the new CEO stepping in and his plan of expanding Tiger that we were heading in the right direction, so much so that I invested in VA shares. How I was wrong, I can only hope that the Tiger A320 Pilot Group and Cabin Crew Group can find greener pastures where they aren't thrown away because it can help the mainline bottom line for a brief second and make people think they are doing better then they are.

Well Done Virgin, Investing in your staff as always !

[Superman1]

Love that this fleet simplification is coming to an end... it’s been such an efficient process and Virgin have once again been the industry leader showing the rest of the world how well a project can be delivered.....ahhh the sweet feeling of mission accomplished everything is now so simple and cost effective ....wait a minute.....after all of that did we just give several A320s to VARA so haven’t really simplified anything ??? Oh I guess we should start again

[Low Pass]

Hearing secondhand that some junior Tiger airbus FOs been made redundant over the last few days. So much for the Consultation. Any confirmation?

[Buster Hyman]

Lucky the Union guys got onto the 737 early. To ensure representation of course....

[drunk_pilot]

Originally Posted by Buster Hyman

Lucky the Union guys got onto the 737 early. To ensure representation of course....

I don’t know who you’re referring to, but the 2 union / TPC reps in Sydney have done no such thing, and their jobs are just as insecure as anyone else in the base, and they have been nothing but fantastic. True professionals with absolute integrity, and good blokes to boot. This comes from an FO that is soon to be unemployed.

[Paragraph377]

Is Tigers days really numbered?

Virgin simply can’t keep propping up TT financially. It’s a disaster and it hasn’t helped having a succession of CEO’s who are equally as stupid as Virgins legacy of idiot CEO’s. funniest thing was that in 2019 Tigerair was found to have the unhealthiest reputation in the airline sector, even worse than the infamous Malaysian Airlines. From the 100 most recognisable companies in Australia it finished 98th with only Adani and Centrelink faring worse. Not a good place to be.

[Colonel_Klink]

Originally Posted by Paragraph377

Virgin simply can’t keep propping up TT financially. It’s a disaster and it hasn’t helped having a succession of CEO’s who are equally as stupid as Virgins legacy of idiot CEO’s. funniest thing was that in 2019 Tigerair was found to have the unhealthiest reputation in the airline sector, even worse than the infamous Malaysian Airlines. From the 100 most recognisable companies in Australia it finished 98th with only Adani and Centrelink faring worse. Not a good place to be.

The brand is in real trouble (and has been for a number of years - arguably sine the grounding) and the above stat shows that - and the marketing people would be well aware of all this.

Perhaps the consolidation of the fleet will enable TT to get its house in order for 6-12 months for it to then follow this up by a rebranding which is exactly what it needs to start afresh.

[QldPilotGuy]

Umm Virgin "propping up" Tiger ? What exactly is your source ? Did you read and examine the Half Yearly results ?
Tiger actually had the highest load factors on flights in the Virgin Group and with one of the lowest cost bases in Australia it is the profitable part of the group.
It's actually Virgin that is pulling down Tiger, Virgin posted a loss and in response they made almost no changes to the Virgin network but instead culled Tiger which will help their books look better in the short term.
If Virgin think that getting rid of half of Tiger will mean Tiger passengers will fly Virgin they are incredibly misguided, they have literally just handed Jetstar a Golden Egg.