An interesting post.
 

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....f211d0af4.jpeg
Fact or not? It’s on social media so must be true..

Fact remains Mr Branson , you have to use your billions to save your airline and sadly even that will not be enough to save VS .
Will you leverage against your banking empire ?? How about your space enterprise ?? Whites of the eyes situation now .
Very sad if VS folds , but you cant expect taxpayers to fund it while you salt away money in the Caribbean.

How did the Branson & Delta consortium react to Flybe's plea for help?

I have no love for Branson. I have never worked for VS and was never really impressed when I flew with them. It would however be a disaster for British aviation if they went under.
The big problem is there is unlikely to be any demand for their product in the near future.

Branson looking for help VA and Virgin Australia
 

Would it? VS are a shadow of their former selves and have been defying financial gravity for years now. Hopefully some other British operator will pick up the slack and their slots when things eventually pick up.

Slight thread drift but i'm curious (and i don't work for VS)... Where does everyone's hatred of Necker Island, specifically, come from? And what does it have to do with VS? He bought it for an equivalent present day cost of about $1.2m... hardly a drop in the ocean when compared to the help the airline actually needs...

I dont think the problem is with Necker as such - just that it is a Caribbean tax haven and people who move their business to a Caribbean tax haven to avoid paying tax should not be eligible for taxpayer support.

But the businesses do pay tax 🙄🙄

Politics of jealousy, some people would rather thousands of staff get made redundant than help a successful business man save his business.

But Branson doesn't. As the majority share holder any government aid to save his business is going to put money directly into his (offshore) pockets.

No Virgin business has moved to a Caribbean tax haven. An old bearded man who launched a business empire and continues to receive dividends and other benefits from his old empire lives in the Caribbean where he is tax domiciled. He's not unique and no one really knows what his "personal" wealth is. The DM likes to think he's worth 4.5billion, that is was the book value of his empire. It's all guess work.

the holding company company for Virgin Atlantic is based in a Caribbean tax haven

I think if we were all honest with ourselves, the overwhelming majority would, given the opportunity to buy an island in the Caribbean and use it as a tax haven for our own personal wealth, do much the same.

Hmmm, that statement fro RB is corporate speak. Just like Google, Amazon or Apple "We pay tax in each country'. That may be true, but what they don't say is how much they shift profits around so that in any one country they pay a fraction of what you would expect. They do corporate accounting, the profits accumulate in low tax jurisdictions, like the BVI.
So, to summarise he's probably right they do pay some tax, but what he doesn't say is that his holding company, probably in the BVI is incredibly profitable and pays no tax anywhere. All legal.

That I'm guessing is an employment vehicle for him to get his dividends which he is entitled to. Again, the onshore businesses are not shoveling their onshore income abroad like you first insinuated, unlike Apple, Amazon, Google et all.

At a meeting at Crawley about ten years ago, I was quite shocked at how openly Virgin managers expressed their dislike for RB. As for the product/service, I have never much cared for it either, and generally opt for competitors, usually BA. However, I don't see why he should be shamed into propping up an unsustainable business. He might run a charity, but he isn't one himself. Businessmen who get emotionally attached to a failing business tend not to stay rich very long (and for sure, RB has in the past, been emotionally attached to VS, and for its brand value, but I suspect he might be approaching an age where he'd rather let it go and enjoy his retirement).

Do have evidence of that statement?

As you say "hopefully" someone else will pick up the slack. Not many other British operators left, let alone ones prepared to jump into the LH market. In the meantime London airways mops up.

I do hate redundancies and employment uncertainty. I have been made redundant 3 times, so I know the feeling.
However, RB's personal tax arrangements are going to cause the downfall of Virgin Atlantic. No Government will prop them up whilst he lives tax-free outside the UK.
Once he and Delta have pumped in a billion UKP in cash, each, then they can ask again.