You reckon?! No airline will continue “as normal”. Look back at how VS has dealt with downturns in the past, this is far more serious..

People will still be desperate to travel when the restrictions have been lifted ,
I reckon the government will give more than 500mil to VS , I wouldn’t be surprised if Delta gave some cash also (I know they are not meant to , but these are extraordinary times and they own 49% )
I know people want to see the collapse of virgin , yes it will probably shrink but that will be getting rid of the 747 &340s which they have basically done .
but I think this ship will keep sailing , sometimes it’s good to be a small fish in a big pond , to be able to quickly adapt is vital

At least they are trying to make an effort:

https://news.sky.com/story/coronavir...china-11968311

Whats this PR opportunity got to do with VS and their survival ??
Branson needs to find private equity and dilute his ownership % , or he will have to approach the bond market for liquidity .
Carnival Cruise did just that and boy did they have to pay for it . 1 year ago they bought $500 million at 1% , last week they stumped up at 15% !!!!
BUT , they got the liquidity they need to stay afloat , for now.
So Branson .... get to it if you want to survive .... its easy to cut your employees salaries but that isnt enough . You will have to take some significant financial input from your own Billions, after all its your airline along with Delta so as Delta only own a stake and their own survival is top of the list .... its really all your responsibility to step up to the plate ,
if VS doesnt survive its all your fault. You can run but you cant hide .
Until you excercise these methods , Rishi Sunak aint going to stump up tax payers money . He knows how these markets work .

[QUOTE=Riskybis;10739290]People will still be desperate to travel when the restrictions have been lifted ,
I reckon the government will give more than 500mil to VS , I wouldn’t be surprised if Delta gave some cash also (I know they are not meant to , but these are extraordinary times and they own 49% )
I know people want to see the collapse of virgin , yes it will probably shrink but that will be getting rid of the 747 &340s which they have basically done .
but I think this ship will keep sailing , sometimes it’s good to be a small fish in a big pond , to be able to quickly adapt is vital[/Q
“Desperate to travel “. Maybe, but get real, where are they going to get the money for travel from, which airlines will still be in existence, who will be operating your holiday accommodation etc. ? There will be other things far more important exercising their minds than travel viz mortgages, jobs, food, housing - simply existing will occupy most peoples’ thoughts! I can’t believe that anyone still thinks that this is a little economic blip which we will recover from in time for everything to get back to normal.It is existential , in some ways , potentially bigger than the 2nd World War. It will take a very long time for things to get back to normal. Virgin etc. will be the least of our worries !

[QUOTE=kcockayne;10739439]lets just all panic then , that always works out well !

People have very short memories and will always spend beyond their means, that much is certain. If that wasn’t the case then credit card companies would have been out of business years ago. It’s nonsense how people talk about the pre Covid 19 times just gone as if in financial terms they were the land of milk and honey. They weren’t. People were just as overstretched then as they will be now. And they still went on holiday. Yes demand will be suppressed for a while. But give it time and people will get bored, forget and they’ll start spending money they don’t have again to mask the tedium of their lives. The more things change the more they stay the same.

I wish it had been the BEEB. Naturally I would been able to instantly bin it.

But no, straight from the horse's mouth, Mr Hancock imself.

It was during one of the fear campaigns at 5.00. Regarding the Government giving VS money not sure that will fly, (please forgive the pun), however, Rolls Royce, BAA, and Airbus will lobby very hard that VS should be given assistance due knock on market effects. It may however be too late.

Can you explain your “It may however be too late.” Comment? Do you know something we don’t?

Well VS has just cancelled all their flights to HKG, which was one of the few remaining destinations. (As has BA - last flight in a few hours)

Where have you seen that? We’ve had no official comms telling us. (Not saying there won’t be)

I am not panicking, Riskybis, just treating this situation with the seriousness that it demands. Covid 19 won’t exterminate us all, but it is putting the economy in by far the worst situation that it has ever been in. Recovering from that will not be a picnic. People , even hitherto affluent people, will be far too busy trying to make sense of their lives , & far too impecunious, to resume traveling; & the travel infrastructure will have, to a large degree, disappeared. That may include VIR - & any other airline that you care to mention. If Governments consider that they have greater uses for our money than subsidizing airlines which may , nevertheless, soon cease to exist , then there won’t be any handouts, & a lot of them will go out of business. I do not want this to happen - & I have important personal reasons to hope that it doesn’t - but there may well be things of far greater importance than our cherished airlines taking priority in the queue for funds. I have a travel voucher from UAE , which covers my flights to the Seychelles. I am not overly optimistic that I am going to have the opportunity to use it within the next 18 months, at least. Keep smiling.

If you mean the flights to HKG, OK, I'll qualify it. All flights beyond the departure on 19 April have been pulled from their website and other booking engines.

Most annoyingly, since my partner had a cheap ticket (through a travel agent) on the 21 April flight which has now been cancelled, and booking a new ticket on one of the earlier flights is almost twice the price.

I'd miss them. As a humble SLF...brilliant airline to fly on. Beat BA hands down. I wouldn't want to see a BA monopoly.

I see Branson is moving his billions Bloomberg

Branson Shifts $1.1 Billion Galactic Holding Between Tax Havens

They are his to move, I don’t see the issue. Does he owe you money or something?

No, but he wants the UK taxpayer to foot his airline's bill. So he may very shortly owe us all money. Hence some people may be very pi**ed off that he's avoiding using his own money that he hides in tax havens.

It's not 'his airline'! He has a minority stake in it these days and is dragged out for PR stunts on new routes.

IAGs biggest shareholder is Qatar Airways, hardly a well known British taxpayer and Stelios lives in Monaco. Corporate structures are complicated and any government bailout decision will be based on providing value for the taxpayer, protecting jobs and recognising Virgin as a national asset for the growth of the economy. Luckily Katie Hopkins and the Daily Mail readers aren't in charge of that decision

Branson owns 51% of the shares in Virgin so he is most certainly not a minority shareholder.

No, Virgin Group owns 51% of Virgin Atlantic. RB does not fully own the Group... if he did he'd be worth a lot more than the £4bn quoted in the papers