Government Loan to Virgin Australia
Join Date: Aug 2018
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Hearing that bloke talk is cringeworthy. He thinks they’ll get picked up because they have good onboard service. Do you really think potential buyers care about that, or do they care about potential profitability? It’s all well and good to be a good airline, but you have to be a good business. No mention of its debt or 8 years of consecutive losses. Under the right leadership with the right shareholders hopefully this can be recovered.
Join Date: Aug 2007
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So if they can walk away from their debt can I walk away from mine?
Always someone else’s fault.
As I said playing with other people’s money.
Please don’t use Rod E’s words.
Always someone else’s fault.
As I said playing with other people’s money.
Please don’t use Rod E’s words.
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sorry, it was a subconscious paraphrasing of that famous quote, not trying to claim it as an idea of my own. I just find it staggering that GT rambled for 7 minutes without bringing up anything resembling an understanding of basic economics.
Accountants don’t give a sh!t that you have a good onboard product if it losses money.
They should get John Borghetti on sky news and ask him how he sleeps at night. I’m so pissed at that bloke and I don’t even work at VA.
Accountants don’t give a sh!t that you have a good onboard product if it losses money.
They should get John Borghetti on sky news and ask him how he sleeps at night. I’m so pissed at that bloke and I don’t even work at VA.
Didn’t Ansett MkII last about 14 days?
If GT said they’re fine then I’m worried as he’s normally totally clueless about most things aviation (I hope he reads this)
If GT said they’re fine then I’m worried as he’s normally totally clueless about most things aviation (I hope he reads this)
Join Date: Oct 2013
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Spot on Buster!
Most people in this game never made the connection but it was such a good business model that it reappeared in 2004 as Jetstar Domestic.
And it was no coincidence that there were a number of ex-Ansett execs involved in making it fly for Qantas (can you guess just one?)
Is there anyone out there who was involved who would care to describe how that plan arose and was sold within QF, it would be very interesting and timely
Most people in this game never made the connection but it was such a good business model that it reappeared in 2004 as Jetstar Domestic.
And it was no coincidence that there were a number of ex-Ansett execs involved in making it fly for Qantas (can you guess just one?)
Is there anyone out there who was involved who would care to describe how that plan arose and was sold within QF, it would be very interesting and timely
As for Virgin (Blue), they should’ve stuck with the intended business model - all 737 fleet and aimed at low fares and filling planes. Simple. But by the time JQ was hitting the tarmac VB had a fat workforce and was far from lean. JQ was the opposite and most times it was ridiculously lean. VB were never going to be able to operate cheaper than JQ and should’ve started trimming fat back in 2005 but they didn’t. They became a floated company and decided to chase QF’s business model/lounges/ rewards card structure, but it was only ever a half arsed product that sat in between cattle classs and business. Big, costly mistake. Then when they morphed from an all 737 fleet to an entity with b737, A320, A330, ATR and the list goes on, it was ‘game over’ not ‘game changer’. You would’ve thought that the ghost of Ansett and it’s ridiculous fleet variation thanks to Sir Peter Abeles going to Tolouse and getting a hard-on and opening the cheque book could be repeated. You would think that Ansett would have still been fresh in the minds of anyone operating an airline in Australia, but nah. That was the day Ansett died, the end result was inevitable and occurred a number of years later. Same has happened to Virgin Australia, it started out with an identity but lost its way and never got comfortable with who it wanted to be and what it had eventually become.
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Well the debt will have to be dealt with prior to a new buyer being happy with it. Question is what do you sell and what can you hand out as haircuts to the Bond Holders and Lenders? Also I thought that they had stood down most of the workers so they aren't paying a lot of them so there is no need to make anyone redundant at this point. Whichever way the business will be slimmed down and lean is the approach so there will be less jobs there it seems. Sad to watch in the circumstances. Looks like they are not the only ones right now with Norwegian, South African and it looks like Atlantic all looking for saviors.
The industry has never seen anything like this before. 9/11 was just a blip and was probably the only thing to really measure the COVID aviation crisis against. And even then, it’s apples and oranges.
The key players in this are Singapore Airlines, Air China plus Cathay Pacific (30% cross shareholding) and Alliance plus industry super funds. Cathay leaves One World and joins Star. Singapore makes the running with Air China and Cathay Pacific in the background. Alliance takes VARA and a holding company with the above shareholders re-launches VAH as Star Alliance Airlines. Administrators return all leased aircraft. There will be no shortage of aircraft in the above fleets to supplement growth. Possibly the Government allows some wet lease cabotage for widebodies to do transcontinental. There is a loyal customer base that will remain loyal, especially if AJ continues at Qantas.
Right, so listening to PS today, and his administrator....no job losses expected.
Can someone explain how the 777 and A330 crew are going to be kept on? Just curious if some has a better radar than mine?
Can someone explain how the 777 and A330 crew are going to be kept on? Just curious if some has a better radar than mine?
The key players in this are Singapore Airlines, Air China plus Cathay Pacific (30% cross shareholding) and Alliance plus industry super funds. Cathay leaves One World and joins Star. Singapore makes the running with Air China and Cathay Pacific in the background. Alliance takes VARA and a holding company with the above shareholders re-launches VAH as Star Alliance Airlines. Administrators return all leased aircraft. There will be no shortage of aircraft in the above fleets to supplement growth. Possibly the Government allows some wet lease cabotage for widebodies to do transcontinental. There is a loyal customer base that will remain loyal, especially if AJ continues at Qantas.
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Sure! I will let some tidbits out. I know because I was ‘around’. Geoff Dixon, Alan Joyce and Bill Jauncey were the architects. Obviously Geoff was at QF and Alan and Bill were ex Ansett. In fact, once up and running Bill Jauncey could/was almost the JQ CEO but they wanted a ‘cleaner’ looking CEO image, a clean shaven suit wearing mincer like AJ was perfect. Bill was a gravelly whisky drinking ciggie smoker, but a very smart man. The original plan was simple - QF to do international and just the highly profitable business class domestic routes - BNE/SYD/MEL. The rest was to go to JQ. Cheap cheap cheap! Get rid of those pesky $300k pilots and have the majority of flights done by Onestar Pilots on around $120k. That’s the short version.
As for Virgin (Blue), they should’ve stuck with the intended business model - all 737 fleet and aimed at low fares and filling planes. Simple. But by the time JQ was hitting the tarmac VB had a fat workforce and was far from lean. JQ was the opposite and most times it was ridiculously lean. VB were never going to be able to operate cheaper than JQ and should’ve started trimming fat back in 2005 but they didn’t. They became a floated company and decided to chase QF’s business model/lounges/ rewards card structure, but it was only ever a half arsed product that sat in between cattle classs and business. Big, costly mistake. Then when they morphed from an all 737 fleet to an entity with b737, A320, A330, ATR and the list goes on, it was ‘game over’ not ‘game changer’. You would’ve thought that the ghost of Ansett and it’s ridiculous fleet variation thanks to Sir Peter Abeles going to Tolouse and getting a hard-on and opening the cheque book could be repeated. You would think that Ansett would have still been fresh in the minds of anyone operating an airline in Australia, but nah. That was the day Ansett died, the end result was inevitable and occurred a number of years later. Same has happened to Virgin Australia, it started out with an identity but lost its way and never got comfortable with who it wanted to be and what it had eventually become.
As for Virgin (Blue), they should’ve stuck with the intended business model - all 737 fleet and aimed at low fares and filling planes. Simple. But by the time JQ was hitting the tarmac VB had a fat workforce and was far from lean. JQ was the opposite and most times it was ridiculously lean. VB were never going to be able to operate cheaper than JQ and should’ve started trimming fat back in 2005 but they didn’t. They became a floated company and decided to chase QF’s business model/lounges/ rewards card structure, but it was only ever a half arsed product that sat in between cattle classs and business. Big, costly mistake. Then when they morphed from an all 737 fleet to an entity with b737, A320, A330, ATR and the list goes on, it was ‘game over’ not ‘game changer’. You would’ve thought that the ghost of Ansett and it’s ridiculous fleet variation thanks to Sir Peter Abeles going to Tolouse and getting a hard-on and opening the cheque book could be repeated. You would think that Ansett would have still been fresh in the minds of anyone operating an airline in Australia, but nah. That was the day Ansett died, the end result was inevitable and occurred a number of years later. Same has happened to Virgin Australia, it started out with an identity but lost its way and never got comfortable with who it wanted to be and what it had eventually become.
Outside of the narrow world of aviation enthusiasts no one knows (or cares) who the CEO of a company is when making a decision on who to fly with. Loud mouths on social media may think they influence a lot of people. They don't. I doubt more than 0.1% of VA's customers fly them because they hate Joyce. There's probably more who fly QF because they find the name "Virgin" inappropriate.
dr dre. I respectfully disagree. Most people who travel know who the CEO of Qantas is while they may never have never heard of Paul Scurrah. Wesfarmers is too smart to go into aviation longer term although they have the balance sheet to fund a transition. There will definitely be an anchor airline involved. Parargraph 377 is on the money. John Borghetti was the wrong person to run VAH, especially with the shareholder register he had. He spent more time managing shareholders than running the business. Best of luck to all the VA front line staff.
Evertonian
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Private equity are all about buying distressed companies with good assets (planes etc) at a huge discount and then selling these, loading the company with new debt and then selling it back to retail and pension funds at a huge profit. Anyone that understands this will then see that:
1- Job losses are inevitable in the short to medium term as VA will come back as a leaner operation flying on mostly profitable routes,
2- International flying will likely be made through code sharing rather than own metal,
3- QF are not going to sit idly and watch a leaner VA eats its share of the cake,
