Potential CEO for Virgin.... 🤔🤔
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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.
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Surely Virgin pilots will be concerned they’ll be dealing with someone who brings a wharfies mindset to industrial relations.
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.
someone who brings a wharfies mindset to industrial relations.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998_A...rfront_dispute
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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?
be full time in Brisbane, since he actually lives there?
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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”.
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...
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!
-
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!
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