Virgin Australia. Must have been one helluva Strategy meeting!!!!
 

Virgin Australia’s new chief executive Paul Scurrah has restructured his executive team in a move that will see group executive Rob Sharp depart the company this Friday.
The restructure follows a two-day strategy meeting held on the Gold Coast last week, at which Mr Scurrah discussed new ideas for success with his most senior managers.
Today The Australian has learned Mr Scurrah has created the positions of Chief Commercial Officer (CCO) and Chief Operations Officer (COO) within the Virgin Australia (VAH) business, in the place of Mr Sharp’s role.
While a global recruitment process is conducted, Tigerair chief executive Merren McArthur will act in the CCO role and director of group flight operations Stuart Aggs will act in the COO role.
Both executives have been with Virgin Australia for a number of years, working in several parts of the business.
Prior to taking on the top job at Tigerair, Ms McArthur led Alliances and Revenue Management and also headed up the Cargo and Charter Services division.
Mr Aggs was previously head of safety and is considered to have the right operational experience for the interim COO role.
Mr Sharp was previously Tigerair’s chief executive before moving into the second-in-charge role under Mr Borghetti.
He was considered a possible contender for the top job but never revealed if he had applied.
It’s understood the changes have been received well internally, six weeks after Mr Scurrah took over from previous CEO John Borghetti.
Last week, Mr Scurrah announced he had renegotiated Virgin Australia’s 737 MAX order with Boeing, deferring deliveries of the first aircraft from this year to 2021, and converting 15 MAX 8 orders, to the larger, more fuel efficient MAX 10s.
He told The Australian he had received an “overwhelmingly positive” welcome to the airline and continued to be excited by the opportunity.
“There is definitely a positivity in the DNA of the people at Virgin which I think really sets us apart from our competition,” Mr Scurrah said.
“There’s a real desire here by all of the people I’ve met for us to succeed and be a powerful player, so that’s very very good to know.”
The Australian

And yet, the VA propensity for disposing of anyone with experience and a track record continues. The other two are lightweights compared to Sharp but it's no surprise, that's the way they roll.

Wrong Richard................
 

That approach didn't quite work out for that Theranos girl did it?

Billy Blunt departing is a form of progress I guess...and maybe, being in charge of group flight ops, MM will finally get that Fokker 100 line restarted! :rolleyes:

The concept of having Tiger as a buffer against Jetstar was a good one, but they needed to invest in it to make it work. In hindsight, they should've kept DJ as the face painting, LCC, and created a wholly new full service carrier. They may have even seen off Jetstar with a strategy like that, but of course, that's pure speculation.

Listen to the podcast? Fascinating stuff!

the route cull is on now too, cap reductions on NZ, pullout from some underperforming WA routes (Geraldton goes in July)

Virgin Australia reviews network as it issues profit warning

• 17 MAY, 2019
• Virgin Australia is reviewing its network as weakening demand in the domestic market is expected to drive it to an underlying pre-tax loss of at least A$35 million ($24.1 million) for the year to 30 June.

The airline says in a 17 May trading update that it expects underlying profit to be “at least $100 million down on the [2018 financial year] comparative result of A$64.4 million

Any airline who couldn't make substantial and sustained profits in the last 3 years is going to be in big trouble over the next 3. Virgin has let the good times go past without filling the financial coffers which may mean tough times ahead.

Maybe I am oversimplifying this, but how is it possible that in the domestic market in which Virgin essentially has one main competitor, (The Qantas group that includes Jetstar), how can you not make money and for how much longer will the different owners put up with this..

Maybe it is the lack of competition which is causing them to make such poor strategic decisions?

Just a few to start;

• Increased crew training requirements
• At the start of it, they had a lot of crew sitting around for many months, doing absolutely nothing (still do. I know of some pilots who went for a nice paid holiday to Florida to do their type rating at the start of it all, and haven't even flown the thing yet!)
• Increase in management positions (you've got a position duplicated twice in a few cases, one for Airbus and one for Boeing)
• Decrease in aircraft utilisation, but many of the overheads are still there (leases, maintenance, etc.)

And that's just what I can come up with looking outside in. Many crew left when they could see the boat had lost it's way. They needed to be replaced, so that goes with your increased crew training requirements.

Existing Tiger crews were never bonded either. That was part of the agreement between the pilots and management.

morno

Ridiculous how many mangers there are. Managers for mangagers which costs a fortune and above all else filters out responsibility.
And if you’re a **** manager we will promote you and give you two more managers.

There will always be an increase in training expense. This is short-lived and will not impact on future profitability. I doubt there are any crew sitting around doing nothing. A few additional heads in the business will not impact profitability. I suspect the airline is already extremely lean. Do you have evidence of the reduced utilisation? What is the current aircraft utilisation for the A320 and 737 fleet?

Depreciation is a non-cash expense. It has no impact on cash-flow. It is irrelevant to airline profitability. Virgin does not own all of their 737's. I will assume the ones going to Tigerair are owned and the purpose of accelerating the depreciation on these aircraft is to clear the books for Virgin and Tigerair of this expense. Rental expense decline would reflect the removal of A320's from the fleet as I assume these are all leased. In FY18 Tigerair increase rASK, yield and RPK's on the back of ASK reductions (two aircraft). They're all positive movements, not negative. cASK increases are likely a result of uncontrollables e.g. fuel expense. Other cASK increases would directly link to activity. Tigerair's cASK would be the lowest out of all airlines.

Just repainted for VARA. But, the way it's going, may as well repaint the whole fleet as VARA.

Does the fleet transition expose Tigerair to additional cost? Yes. But it is short-term pain to enable cost liberation in the long term. There are sound benefits of this philosophy. It most certainly is the right thing to do.

Without the data to support aircraft utilisation it becomes a moot point. I prefer fact, so I will discount this until it can be substantiated. Someone could look at the schedule and make that determination. I beleive the fleet would be highy utilised.

More like Alliance livery.

Over in the engine room it’s 10-12 hour 4 sector back to back days with absolute min rest on every overnight for years on end.

The red hot tip is the front end of a VAA NG isn’t where you’ll find the missing cash or any EBA efficiencies in the next round.

Been propping up the whole outfit and funding numerous hair brain ideas from day dot.

[QUOTE=Berealgetreal;10475465]More like Alliance livery.

Virgin Australia takes axe to key Qld route

Robyn Ironside
May 22, 2019

Virgin Australia has wasted no time cutting back capacity, announcing Alliance Airlines will takeover two return services a week between Brisbane and Cairns.

Currently operated by Virgin Australia’s Boeing 737-800 aircraft with the capacity to seat 176 passengers including eight in business class, Alliance will use its Fokker 100s on the services, seating 100 people.

A statement from Virgin Australia said the airline remained “committed to this area of our network”.

“We will continue to provide a strong schedule proposition on this route,” the statement said.

The Alliance services will operate on Thursdays and Fridays.

A trading update released by Virgin Australia last week showed the airline was again headed for another annual loss, as a result of weaker demand, and fuel and foreign exchange headwinds. Group CEO Paul Scurrah said capacity would continue to be reviewed, with the airline already reducing the number of seats in the market by 1.5 per cent.

“There’s going to be a very, very tight look at where we’re flying and how those routes are performing,” Mr Scurrah told The Australian last week.

Data compiled by the Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics showed passengers travelling between Brisbane and Cairns on all airlines, had fallen 6.6 per cent in March.

In March 2018, 106,700 passengers travelled between the two ports compared to 99,600 in March this year.

Other routes that could be under review by Virgin Australia include Brisbane-Darwin, with passengers falling 12.5 per cent in March across all airlines; and Brisbane-Hamilton Island with numbers down 8.2 per cent.

Alliance operates a number of other services for Virgin Australia including between Port Moresby and Brisbane.

I bet they're regretting turfing out their E190s now. Is it true they're still paying the lease for these whilst being stored in Nashville USA?

https://www.casa.gov.au/aircraft-reg...eld_ar_serial=

https://www.casa.gov.au/aircraft-reg...eld_ar_serial=

ZPR ZPN...

That about sums up VA... the WORST of the crop are the ones who get promoted. Can't fathom how that happens without a deliberate effort to say "OK, who's the worst candidate and how do we justify giving them the job"... there's no other explanation. The whole administration of this airline has been a complete joke since the messiah arrived from the mail room.

And now Qantas owns part of Alliance... you couldn't invent the stupidity of VA for a comical aviation version of 'The Office'... the airline is like a real life version of the movie 'Office Space'... "Now, if you could just GO AHEAD and come in on Saturday and screw the operation that w o u l d be g r e a t !!!"