V Australia gets an AOC
 

Congratulations to all the team.

Good on Ya!

I hope they get a couple of flights in before they drag the rest of us down the gurgler!!!!

Good on ya VBA Engineer.

There are those in this world who make dust and those who eat dust. You sir, I would suggest, are in the latter category.

When the VA team started down this difficult road things were a lot brighter. Without doubt the industry is in crisis (un-forcastable for the VA folk). However the Chinese character for crisis is a combination of the characters for "danger" and "oportunity". Thankfully the VA team are able to focus on the oportunities while doing their best to mitigate the dangers. The fruit of this, to date, is the award of the AOC today at 3pm.

One can only hope that the entire Virgin family get behind this venture to give it the best chance of success.

There are however times when amputation is necessary, never easy to accept but necessary.

What odds are the bookies giving?

good luck to Virgin Oz, I hope they do well, Australia needs a second international carrier, despite all the negative posts about them and their future i say best of luck to them....:ok:

Hear hear. ...

Heartiest congrats to the Tumba kid!

cheers
 

I do hope they grow.. and grow fast even with the economic downturn globally..

Fly High V Oz..:D

Give the flying Rat the big V guys
 

Certainly leaving it to the last minute. :eek:
"Go forth and plunder the Qantas treasure chest":E

Good luck, you will need it:rolleyes:

Getzo :oh:

What odds are the bookies giving?

The Townsville refuellers' not paying good odds, while Centre-bet isn't taking any $$ yet :p

Here we go, wait for the armchair experts to come out and paint doom and gloom.

Go well V Australia.:ok:

:ok:
No doom and gloom Sam, everyone wishes them well it's just very hard to make a go of it, from such an expensive start that could have been avoided (off to the bunker now:}).

Everyone wishes them well except that the contract is a HR ideological driven hatred of crew based document.

The logic of taking these low paid, poor condition jobs is "I will just use this to get experience to get a better paying job"

The problem is that with the exception of QF, CX and KA there are few other places left that hire Australian pilots on reasonable T's and C's. Airline managements worldwide know that Australian pilots are the whores of the industry that are prepared to backstab and cut each other down in order to get a seat somewhere.

I bet the HR biatch and her cronies are well paid though.

The downward spiral continues....

Getzo, you really don't get it!
 

I, like the majority of QF staff, wish V Oz all the best. We would rather have another Australian carrier operating international routes rather than have off-shore operators (like SQ & EK) come in and plunder then take the profits back off-shore. At least Qantas and V Oz employ Australians (in the large majority) and their employment has a flow on effect for many others.

There is definitely room for another international carrier - I just hope that the timing does not cause a premature demise of V OZ

Good luck VA. The concept is great and there is room for competition.

As for the salaries and employment conditions on offer, I hope you fall on your faces in HQ. WHEN the global market improves again in 2010 there will be a serious/critical aircrew shortage (there already was last year and the current hiatus is only making matters worse as old guys will leave the industry forever but new pilots won't come in).

The record global aircraft orders of the last few years will need pilots to fill seats (unless the a/c go straight to the desert).

Treating pilots like crap from day 1 is not a good recipe for long-term success. Look forward to VA aircrew resignations in 2010 (straight to EK) and flight cancellations - much the same as VB last year.

This needs a SWIFT resloution (too subtle?).

Aircraft #2 will touch down YBBN in half an hour.

Landing time for #2 is 9.22 local in BNE

AU9090 B772 23:22 23:26 88 KLAX In Flight

Well my wife works as a travel agent in an office of about 40 consultants and they are all very excited about VOZ.

They are sick of dealing with Qantas and look forward to the competition. For example, when QF go to Johannesburg their passengers usually have to overnight before connecting the next day, VOZ will get there at a reasonable hour. Stuff like that.

They all had a tour of the aircraft this week and are RAVING about the cabin, especially Business class.
Just some thoughts from another part of the industry...
Good luck to you all in this difficult year.