Sunfish,

Evething you say is true but Virgin employees and suppliers couldn't give two hoots who takes over the company. As long as they are taking home a paycheck every week because that is their primary concern.

Contracts, ownership structures etc are about 187th on the list of worries for Virgin employees right now.

What happens in 2 years time isn't a priority when you don't have a paycheck.

I am a Virgin employee, and I do give two, if not three hoots who buys into our company. I would rather not go through this again, if possible. Not that I have any control over it though!

I too am someone who cares what happens in 2 years time. As a pilot - I want an entire career with Virgin, so it’s vitally important to me that this place is around in 2/5/20 years time.

What’s going to be important about who takes over is what the plan for staff numbers as well as terms and conditions are. I am concerned about what I read about Bain - and I feel Sunfish is spot on about what he wrote above.

There is a good article in the AFR today also saying that there is the real possibility of 1000s of jobs that could be lost. The CEO is starting to change his tune on this front, recently saying that not everyone will be here at the end of this process. The issue is that there is a lot of ‘head in the sand’ by employees at the moment - no one is really too concerned about their jobs, when they absolutely should be.

There is a lot of posturing going on by the ACTU and TWU. It’s all good and well to want as many full time jobs as possible on current Ts and Cs - but at what cost? It’s disingenuous for these unions to not be addressing the elephant in the room. There will be job losses - so what are these unions going to do about it? From a pilots perspective, I hope my unions goal is to keep as many pilots as possible - giving people the option of Part Time, and perhaps even the unpopular idea of a reduction in pay to keep everyone employed.

If an airline pilot is made redundant at the moment, the likelihood of them continuing in a career in aviation is significantly reduced. Many of my colleagues have young families, new homes, etc etc, so if I have to take a bit of a hit to ensure these people aren’t out on the street, then so be it.

I will rephrase. Few people will care who buys Virgin as long as they keep their job and the new owners don't go bust in the first 2 years. At least that way the aviation sector may have recovered enough for people who aren't happy with the new owners to move on.

Agree with ya C Klink

its nice to be able to discuss these issues without that **** Paragraph377 hijacking every thread related to Virgin.
I think the big areas of concerns for the pilot group with regards to whom takes over will be what parts of the airline are to be saved and what’s going to get the chop.
The majority of my mates on the 737 seem reasonably confident of keeping their jobs in some form or another but those on the 330,777,ATR and Fokker are all understandable concerned as to the future make up of the airline. At this stage both BGH and Bain seem to more focused on a reduced single fleet operation at least to begin with at least. Where that leaves VARA, Widebody and ATR pilots is the 6 million dollar question.

Something like 450 pilots have already been made redundant with the closing down of VANZ and Tigerair pilot group. The thought of another 300-400 pilots joining them is truely terrifying and hopefully will be the AFAP and VIPA’s major focus in protecting jobs.

The AFR is now reporting that Bain is the hot contender with Carla set to replace Scurrah. Bid results later today.

I would be waiting to see the creditor's reaction to the successful bidder's offer before getting too excited.

And that's if there is a successful bid.

I just don’t understand how Hardlicker keeps turning up in these top jobs.

Ex; the AFR: Bain hot favourite for Virgin final round.......
 

Link here: https://www.afr.com/street-talk/bain...0200602-p54yl7

Extract here:Rgds all
S28- BE

Carla has a long relationship going back years with Bain

Paul's prezzo indicated 1300 cabin crew jobs gone by end of year, do the maths boys.

Carla was one of the Bain lead consultants at Ansett. Her MO hasn't changed. But she will prevail, she always does

Until she's fired - The problem is it takes years to rebuild something that has been destroyed, just look at the Jetstar experience with the deadly duo and the effect it had on that organisation.

For those that are not at Jetstar or have friends there, what was the effect? I assume it wasnt pretty, hence the comment.

As an employee of Virgin, with a minority vote in the Administration, would be good to know what to avoid, if possible!

Cheers

How soon will Indigo apply for its own AOC?

Readers may be interested to know Blackstone purchased 2 seaplane operators in 2013 for a total of USD98M. The 2 operators were combined into the one operator and tarted up by spending a further USD6M. Four years later Blackstone sold the operation to another private equity firm xxxx xxxxxxx for around USD500M, a 4.8 times return multiple on their investment. Who said there is no money in aviation. Welcome to the world of private equity, venture capital and Bob's Discount Furniture a major asset of Bain Capital.

That is a strange comment to make about the process progressing.

Could they tie up with Rex?

So why not all the losers apply for their own AOC that would make 7 or 8 airlines. Unsustainable but wow, jobs
for everyone. One year later their will be mergers galore back to 3 airlines.

Anyway its been culled down to two, which one is best, Bain or Cyrus?! both have different ideas. Cyrus have an interesting plan and how much more than 3.5 billion is being offered.

I can see why Bain has kept her on and will keep her on in Virgin. She gave Bain and Co. $19 million in consultancy fees whilst at A2 milk.............

Maybe Cyrus might be the better of the two given their idea's.

Interesting that Brookfield was not a finalist................ If what you mentioned Blackout is on the money.