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Virgin changing us to an EARLIER flight with only 90 minutes notice

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Virgin changing us to an EARLIER flight with only 90 minutes notice

Old 24th Jun 2022, 21:15
  #61 (permalink)  
 
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haha, I like it.

It doesn't take too much to wind up the whiny triggered.

Last edited by tossbag; 25th Jun 2022 at 00:22.
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Old 18th Oct 2022, 03:49
  #62 (permalink)  
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4 months ago....

A perfect storm of
1. CPI inflation - food, energy, certain commodities (which will push correlated stocks up).
2. Rising rates to try and get CPI inflation under control. This (and quantitative tightening) are the only tools that central banks have, and so they are deploying them. They won't be highly effective however. Previous waves of CPI inflation were often due to increased demand - so jacking rates helped by curbing demand of discretionary items. This time, CPI inflation is due to reduced supply (China shutting down, end of globalisation, Ukraine). Putting up interest rates isn't going to reduce your need for food or petrol - it will just take it harder to meet these expenses.
3. Asset deflation due to increased interest rates - housing, certain stocks
4. "Poor effect." People spend when their house increases - they feel wealthy and can pull equity from their home. This is the wealth effect. The opposite is the poor effect - as interest rates increase and the value of housing falls. people aren't going to be buying cars, or planning expensive holidays etc. They will hunker down.

This is happening around the world

However Australia is especially poorly placed to weather this storm due to
1. Extraordinary high levels of household debt - due to all the cheap credit the past 15 years,. Interest rates have been at 5,000 (yes, 5,000) year lows according to Ban of England research (interest existed back then)
2. Some of the most expensive housing in the world
3. Many Australians are on variable rates, or short term (2-3 yr) fixed rates. In many places, interest rates are fixed for 10 years - or even the life of the loan.
4. A need to seriously think about defence for the first time in decades - defence spending will have to rise significantly as we contemplate living in a less certain world.

At the same time, the "Chinese miracle" is coming to the end. There has been an unprecedented demand for iron ore and coking coal as China transforms from a rural society to an urbanised society. The largest demographic shift the world has ever seen. However its over - China is now reaching the 70-75% plateau at which societies cease this urbanising (some people always stay in the rural areas). China is also moving to steel recycling rather than making new steel. Sp iron and coking coal exports are going to fall. Hard.

We also look destined to experience global famine on a scale not seen for a long time. China now holds 50-60% of the world wheat stocks - China can see what's coming down the pike. China and Russia (by far the 2 largest exporters of fertilisers) are both restricting exports = less grains and other plants = less feed for humans and animals. There are also huge energy inputs into food - transport obviously, but also production (greenhouses) and processing food - these energy costs will reduce production and increase costs. So we are going to have less food, and its going to cost a lot more. This will cause civil unrest within countries, but also at a global level - think of Europe with a billion hungry Africans seeking food.

My strong suspicion is that Covid is not done with us either. A very strange virus that emerged at a very interesting time. Although not insignificant, we have way overestimated the risks. Our counter-measures (which were disproportionate due to a flawed risk assessment) have caused supply chain disruptions, reckless momentary policy (modern monetary theory) and inflation (whocouldaknown).

Chickens are coming home to roost. Covid? - you ain't seen nothing yet. Get ready.

4 months on......

1. Inflation at 40 year highs. And hiking rates and QT aren't working. Whocouldaknown.
Anyway US Fed will keep hiking as it doesn't have any other options.
Australia RBA will follow US Fed up but at a slower rate - Aust is far more vulnerable to rising rates with variable or 2 year fixed, while most US mortgages are fixed for the duration.
More house price falls ahead.
Aust $ will fall due to widening gap between US and Aust rates = cost of imports (especially oil) up.
And inflation will continue - deglobalisation, Ukraine, supply chain disruptions, energy shortage, food shortage
https://www.theguardian.com/business...est-rate-hikes
https://www.afr.com/world/north-amer...0221013-p5bppl
At least Yellen has admitted she was wrong about inflation.
Because Biden has forgotten he ever said it was transitory 15 months ago.
https://www.npr.org/2022/06/01/11023...llen-inflation

2. The energy crisis is getting more serious with industry shutting and energy rationing in Europe as we head into winter.
UK has told its citizens they can sit in council libraries all day this winter to keep warm.
Germany is re-opening coal power stations - pollution and global warming are the very least of Europe's concerns right now
https://www.dw.com/en/germanys-energ...gas/a-62709160
A state actor destroyed Nordstream 1 and 2, so that's the end of Russian gas into Germany
This will take years to fix - the immediate problem is this winter, but expect 2-3 years (at least) until this is resolved.

3. Energy and food production are inextricably entwined with interdependencies presents at multiple levels.
To the extent we have an energy crisis we will have a food crisis.
https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/09/1126771
Russia has hinted it can drive millions of hungry refugees from Africa into Europe to destabilise it.

4. Covid
Lancet Covid Commission report is out.
All options about origin remain on the table. However, Sachs (Chair of commission) is pretty certain it is manmade, and there has been disinformation by US and China. .
https://www.currentaffairs.org/2022/...o-the-pandemic
https://www.thelancet.com/commissions/covid19

5. Ukraine war.
Russia threatening nukes - can't see that, and I suspect he is warning NATO to keep out of it.
China will be the long term winner in Ukraine, and will gain a lot of influence over various Stans.

6. China
Has lots of problems (a faltering economy and a disastrous demographic profile).
Desperate countries can become dangerous (parallels with Germany in the 1930's)

7. Society
We are starting to see what happens when you disrupt a society.
Health and education systems are under a lot of pressure - little to do with Covid, and a lot to do with everything else.
Aviation still looks to be in a mess - which is what started this thread
Kids education has been impacted these 3 years. Not for every kid, sure. But is has for enough kids, and will affect them for the next 50 years.
The psychological health and resilience of many in society are poor, especially kids and young adults. This is appearing in many forms - including "long Covid'
We ain't going back to 2019 - many can't & almost have PTSD, and many others won't

Tossbag is right.
slats, what you've got to understand is that a pilot does not like to be challenged, they especially don't like their intelligence being challenged. You're right though, the world is in for some pretty serious lessons shortly. First, governments around the world scared the **** out of everyone with a tool as simple as a respiratory virus that did what any other respiratory virus did, culled the weak, overweight and unhealthy. You want to fight a virus? Lose weight, do some exercise and live a healthy life. Now we're dealing with a so called environmental crisis, so if you haven't already scared the living **** out of your children with a flu, how about you do it with this 'crisis.' We now have a few generations scared ****less of multiple crises, just add a new crisis to the existing bull**** and you'll tip those generations over the edge. Never mind, as you allude, we're in for a bit of a ride over the next few years, the next crisis will be running out of paper to print new money.
And you still ain't seen nothing yet.
Get prepared.
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Old 18th Oct 2022, 11:04
  #63 (permalink)  
 
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Originally Posted by fineline
Virgin: Been there, done that.

It sounds frustrating, but what can they do better other than answer the phone more quickly? (Which is one of my pet peeves, especially banks...) They can't book you on Qantas, and may not have know the 2000 would depart 2200. Only thing I can see is maybe pay airport hotel for catching the next days flight, I've had that a couple of times on internationals but it's a stretch on domestic.
They can book you on Qantas, they just choose not to. Qantas on the other hand, if there's no other option, WILL FIM people to VA. VA are one of those 'special people' (organisations) that think they can exist in the aviation industry but follow none of its rules/norms. Friends at Air NZ told me it's not just the profit stuff that led them to give VA the flick. All the time they owned 25%, they would send pax to VA via FIM, VA would send them back and this little game would start between the two, VA either utterly incapable of knowing what to do or whatever. Air NZ told me they got to the point where they'd just send the disrupted NZ pax to QF because QF would check them in, send them on their way and then use the NZ Boarding pass stubs to reconcile and get the FIM from NZ.

It was a different story when VA had problems, they'd practically demand that NZ drop everything and fix VA's problem or take its pax.

As to the OP comment. My ex and daughters went to SYD for a football game one weekend back in May. No advice, arrived at the airport in SYD and their flight was cancelled. VA's response was bad luck, you're booked tomorrow, not our fault, find your own accommodation.

They went for a walk around the terminal and someone who actually gave a rats a-se asked them if they were OK. She, while not ideal, booked them to BNE to catch a BNE-MEL flight. Not ideal as I say, but got them back to MEL after midnight. If they hadn't have found that one nice person (ought to have her stuffed as Basil Fawlty would say), they would have missed a day of work had to pay for a hotel, etc. etc.

Pretty average. But worth telling to balance all the vitriol Qantas gets lately.
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Old 19th Oct 2022, 00:00
  #64 (permalink)  
 
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Originally Posted by slats11

Virgin is succeeding where the greenies have failed - they are discouraging people from flying.

Ironic for an industry which has requested and received so much taxpayer support the last few years.

Monday 30/5/22, my relatives were returning from SYD to MEL having flown up the Sunday for a Monday morning funeral.
They were booked on VOZ898 departing SYD at 2200, so we had some time together after the funeral.
At 1830, we get an email advising that 898 has been cancelled, and have been moved to VOZ888 departing at 2000. From our location, we could not make that flight which was to start boarding only 1 hour after the email was sent!
We called Virgin, and endured a (predictably) long hold. It was "explained" that the weather in MEL meant flight arrivals late yesterday evening had been cancelled. A quick check of FlightAware showed that was a lie.
We were then told that we could catch a later flight from SYD to Gold Coast, and then a flight from Gold Coast to MEL. So a plane could apparently fly into MEL late last night after all - so long as the plane had warmed up in Queensland before flying to MEL.
We then asked Virgin to transfer us to the 2200 Qantas flight which was still scheduled and showing capacity. "No, we can't do that."
[size=13px]So we had no choice but to paid $600 last minute for 3 seats one-way on the 2200 Qantas flight. If we couldn't make the 2000 flight, Virgin said the only alternative was to stay in SYD last night and return this morning.[/size]

We then discovered that the 2000 VOZ888 had departed SYD at 2200 (at the scheduled time for VOZ898). This seemed curious in light of previous information that Wx had caused the cancellation of VOZ898.

It's impossible to speak with anyone, and you are left on hold with "longer than usual wait times."

Not good enough Virgin. Not nearly good enough.
I hear you and share your frustration.
it’s not only Virgin, Qantas is NO better. In fact very few large organisations deal with customer service well unfortunately.
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Old 19th Oct 2022, 03:58
  #65 (permalink)  
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it’s not only Virgin, Qantas is NO better. In fact very few large organisations deal with customer service well unfortunately.
Whocouldaknown that 3 years of seeing every other person as a potential cause for your demise, WFH, social isolations, QR codes everywhere, perspex screens, masks, moving to online communication (including an email that your flight has been cancelled and you need to get to YSSY in 45 minutes in the pouting rain) ..... could possibly lead to reduced customer service. It was already going downhill, yes. But Covid sure exacerbated it.

This is interesting. New paper from Ioannidis (world renowned epidemiologist) finding that the infection fatality rate from Covid was WAY lower than assumed. Way way lower.
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...2280963v1.full
https://michaelpsenger.substack.com/...dis-covids-ifr

It was obvious back in 2020 from Diamond Princess, USS Theodore Roosevelt & prison studies that the IFR was pretty low. All 3 settings had a “confined population", and so it was easy to measure IFR directly. About 0.5 - 1% on Diamond Princess - lot of elderly westerners (mean age of pax about 70) with extensive comorbidities. And way lower in other settings (TR and prisons tend to be young populations).

Anyway, these are Ioannidis's calculations for IFR based on 31 national seroprevalence studies
0.0003% at 0-19 years (3 deaths per million infections)
0.003% at 20-29 years (30 per million)
0.011% at 30-39 years (110 per million)
0.035% at 40-49 years (350 per million)
0.129% at 50-59 years (1,290 per million)
0.501% at 60-69 years. (5,010 per million)
This comes out to 0.035% for those aged 0-59 and 0.095% for those aged 0-69.

That was pre-vaccination and pre-Omicron. You can divide these numbers by a factor of 5 (maybe 10) today.

Anyway, death is in the young-middle aged is (fortunately) pretty rare. And even rarer in the Han population.
It's strange how often Wuhan security cameras captured people dropping dead in the street. Fortunately the rest of the world was spared these apocalyptic scenes.
Tis a strange world.
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