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VA pilots worried about employment 2021

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VA pilots worried about employment 2021

Old 22nd Feb 2020, 03:47
  #101 (permalink)  
 
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The S.S Virgin

From day one Virgin has been managed by numbnuts with the almighty dollar in their eyes. A poorly managed and poorly constructed business model that has only ever benefited the trough swilling executives at the top. Branson, Godfrey, Sherrard, Borghetti and now Scurrah are the ones who are benefiting from this lemon of a company. Buy in now at $0.002 per share!!!! What a joke. You would make more money from investing in selling cans of dog urine as a skin product! I don’t believe that trainboy Scurrah will be able to do anything other than keep riding the Virgin Titanic to the bottom of the ocean while he continues to earn millions for himself. Who knows, he may also open a wilderness lodge in Tasmania yet! 20 years of stupidity and skating on the brink of receivership.

Maybe Virgin can reintroduce flair and dance around the planes while selling lip balm and the foolish ‘Losing My Virginity’ biographies?

I say let the old old dog die peacefully.



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Old 22nd Feb 2020, 05:06
  #102 (permalink)  
 
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Paragraph.

I have just had a peruse over some of your posts.

I perceive a highly negative perspective on just about everything you partake in.

I do hope you can see some light for the many who will potentially be the collateral damage to your negative emotion.

Have a great day.
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Old 22nd Feb 2020, 07:10
  #103 (permalink)  
 
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Originally Posted by -41
hopefully the rumoured announcements will wind back the alliance flying.
Not in the near future the current contract has a few years to run.

But it it wouldn’t be the first time they walked around from a contract early whilst coming to other arrangements whilst still paying Alliance!

In other news looks like the ATR storage has now ended.
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Old 22nd Feb 2020, 07:13
  #104 (permalink)  
 
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Originally Posted by t_cas
Paragraph.

I have just had a peruse over some of your posts.

I perceive a highly negative perspective on just about everything you partake in.

I do hope you can see some light for the many who will potentially be the collateral damage to your negative emotion.

Have a great day.
Nevertheless he is absolutely correct.
The company is a bloody joke. Could not run a tart shop as the old saying goes.
Years of losses and stupid decisions, hounding and weeding out anyone with any knowledge of the industry or talent and a factory for weasel words and BS.
The only thing that's tragic is the potential loss of jobs if it goes under but those who were the architect will skip off to their next disaster and never pay the price.
When the best defense someone can come up with after now nearly a decade of uncontrolled spending and continual losses with no end in sight, some of it on projects that are dropped half way through, is that it is 'net cash-flow positive' then it's just pathetic.
If they wanted the company to work better and be run better, they should turn it upside down and give it a shake... let the people at the bottom run the thing and those at the top can check people in and load the aeroplanes... oh wait, no, that wouldn't work because no one would ever get checked in and no aeroplane would ever get loaded... or they'd contract the check in, etc. out to Alliance or someone.
I hoped the new guy could sort it out but I fear it's just more of the same...
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Old 22nd Feb 2020, 07:23
  #105 (permalink)  
 
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Originally Posted by PoppaJo
I just don’t understand why they don’t just put the things back on Domestic where they originally started, and send the corresponding 737s to the Pussycat.

Poor old Tiger, after all these years nobody still gives two ****s about it. I reckon if VA was given free Tiger painted 737s from Boeing for Christmas they still wouldn’t send them to Tiger.

There is more chance of Virgin leasing 737s to Qantas then going to Tiger!
'than' going to Tiger unless you meant them going there after?
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Old 22nd Feb 2020, 07:27
  #106 (permalink)  
 
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Are the China guys emailing offering to fly the A330 for less?.
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Old 22nd Feb 2020, 07:27
  #107 (permalink)  
 
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Originally Posted by Servo
Reverse date of joining for losing ones position. Now a pay cut. If true, they are drinking cool aid in Virgin head office. A mess created by poor management and ego. Once again the pointy end staff pays the price, whilst others walk away with an obscene amount of money or remain in their ivory chairs in their ivory tower, protecting their position. What a horrible industry.
Or get awarded an AO in Australia Day honors.
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Old 22nd Feb 2020, 07:39
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I don’t think PS was ever going to be anyone’s favorite. Regardless of who they put in the job or where they came from they are all given the same plate of financial ruin. They can only all so the same, ie cut cost and lean it out. That usually has a low fanbase. Mid to late this decade until you really come out the other end.

There are some very good world class customer facing corporates in this country that they could learn off. Woolworths is one. Coles another. It’s a customer and team culture without the ego driven narrow minded management.

They probably need to move their office to Melbourne or Sydney if they want any hope of securing decent talent. Especially on the digital front.
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Old 22nd Feb 2020, 08:04
  #109 (permalink)  

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Originally Posted by wheels_down
They probably need to move their office to Melbourne or Sydney if they want any hope of securing decent talent.
Interesting point. Was offered an interview when AN folded but moving to BNE wasn't on my radar. Without making any assumptions about those there now, I was told it was absolute chaos in the early noughties.
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Old 22nd Feb 2020, 08:15
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Target recently moved their office to Melbourne in an effort to secure better Talent. Woolworths even gone to the length of opening a second Sydney office this time in the city to secure high end talent. They moved all Digital to Pyrmont to secure global individuals. Results speak for themselves.

Time to dump the Village and move down south. Extra costs in moving will be pulled back by securing some top people making better decisions.

Last edited by wheels_down; 22nd Feb 2020 at 08:26.
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Old 22nd Feb 2020, 09:40
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An article from yesteryear to make your blood boil about the muppet who “transformed” it all...

https://www.news.com.au/finance/busi...13fddb1e8a770a
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Old 22nd Feb 2020, 10:07
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The VA checklist of fu#kups

The Virgin Blue business concept was, in theory, a good idea. Compass 1 and 2 had tried it but the timing simply wasn’t right. Australia wasn’t ready. An all 737 fleet based on an operating model like Southwest was the intention. And true, Virgin Blue started out that way. But executive greed took over and the reality was that the Pied Piper Branson and his cohorts in Fortitude Valley wanted to float the company after a couple of years, make many many millions for themselves and then swan dance the heck out of there with all of those shiny millions. DGAF about whatever eventuates. Amongst many mistakes they started VARA at the wrong time (end of the mining boom), threw money at Alliance, bought Skywest, bought Tiger, bought Embraers, multiple fuel hedging screwups, bought some desert thrashed EK 330’s, had multiple aircraft types (Peter Abel’s and the death of Ansett ring a bell?), PAC Blue, Virgin New Zealand and Virgin also started a half arsed semi business class, jerked themselves into a stupor over ‘game changing’, and had/have on their books more ‘specialists’ than the United Stars medical profession combined. Do I need to continue?

I’m sorry if this comes across all negative. I seriously don’t want to see any employee out of a job. But if it happens, it’s because of the muppets who have mismanaged the airline for the past 2 decades. The company is not geared up to withstand a ‘perfect storm’ of financial challenges, they never have been and I would say never will be.




Last edited by Paragraph377; 22nd Feb 2020 at 23:59.
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Old 22nd Feb 2020, 12:01
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An all 737 fleet based on an operating model like Southwest was the intention. And true, Virgin Blue started out that way.
Anybody who's flown Southwest would know if it was Virginblues intention to mimic them, they failed dismally. In the end I don't think any Australian airline would have the gumption to 'give' the passenger things like civil legroom, included luggage and the like. In the end they fell into the trap of charging for everything. Now they are in 'no mans land.' Now they are 'all hat, no cattle'

Pity, they have decent people at the coalface, constrained by inferior infrastructure set up by incompetents. The Village Idiots are something to behold, I'm told.
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Old 22nd Feb 2020, 22:30
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Originally Posted by Hoosten

Pity, they have decent people at the coalface, constrained by inferior infrastructure set up by incompetents. The Village Idiots are something to behold, I'm told.


Bold statement based on others perception.
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Old 23rd Feb 2020, 19:48
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You would be hard pressed to find people that would argue with many of the above statements. Having said that it, most if not all has happened (past) and there is very little we can do about it.

What matters is what is happening right now and in the future or near future. This Corona virus or Covid-19 is far from under control. WHO might as well be renamed Goldman Sachs and the our government is starting to buckle to pressure. Chinese year 11/12 students are on their way in and universities will follow shortly. You’re talking tens maybe a hundred thousand people here and BIG $.

Anyone that thinks the A330 will be the only one to feel the effects might get a nasty surprise. Food for thought.

At the risk of being unpopular or flamed I’d be thinking a how to protect my family from the worst case and b what can I do workwise to make sure I have a job at the end of it (if there is an end).

Good luck. (I hope I’m proved wrong and look silly ASAP!).
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Old 23rd Feb 2020, 23:27
  #116 (permalink)  
 
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The VA CEO has made it clear that the hit to the business is not just to the A330 operation. Business travel is down, and the now absent Chinese tourists flew plenty of domestic sectors, predominantly on 737s.

If VA pull the trigger on forced A330 pilot redundancies it will destroy trust among all the various pilot groups, not just the A330.

At risk of skirting Godwin's Law... "First they came for the A330 pilots, but I said nothing as I was not an A330 pilot..."
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Old 23rd Feb 2020, 23:48
  #117 (permalink)  
 
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The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth

The CEO and Board will do whatever it takes to make sure their rice bowls are protected. If you think they could give a crap about pilot unemployment, or anybody becoming unemployed, you are living in the third dimension. It’s all about the shareholder, CEO and Board. Obscene salaries and bonuses must, and will come first. All these fluffy photos of staff smiling with Scurrah add no longevity to a person’s career. If the time comes for the toe cutter to bone his staff, he will do it and he will do it without blinking an eye.

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Old 24th Feb 2020, 01:23
  #118 (permalink)  
 
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Originally Posted by Paragraph377
The CEO and Board will do whatever it takes to make sure their rice bowls are protected. If you think they could give a crap about pilot unemployment, or anybody becoming unemployed, you are living in the third dimension.
And this is why pilots should be somewhat concerned. The CEO has just made 750 odd positions redundant in head office - I doubt he will hesitate in making pilots redundant if need be. In the pilot’s favour - making a pilot redundant is a very expensive exercise. And most VA pilots will know what happened during the GFC...The Company moved too many pilots off the 737, and when the economy picked up, they were left short of flight crew. You’d think they’d not make the same mistake twice. The only issue is they will be bleeding cash in the meantime.....

Strong rumour that NZ will be losing some aircraft and those will head over to TT to accelerate fleet replacement there. You’d have to also think that domestic capacity reductions will be announced at the half year results.

Last edited by Colonel_Klink; 24th Feb 2020 at 01:55. Reason: Edited date
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Old 24th Feb 2020, 01:42
  #119 (permalink)  
 
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I think you may find the mid year results will be released on the 26th Feb
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Old 24th Feb 2020, 01:56
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Domestic Capacity is not being cut too heavy from my info, just capacity and schedule being repositioned more productively. The other guys do a better job of seasonal scheduling, Virgin runs to one schedule.

You will find less Tiger flights departing close or on top of Virgin flights. In the past they have sent in Tiger alongside Virgin routes, but they had the flights departing at the same time, rendering both loss making. The idea is to have Tiger depart at the undesirable times that people still pay for, and the Virgin flight commands the price schedule premium. Backpackers don’t care about departing Cairns to Sydney at business hours, send them back at 8pm or 6am.

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