Virgin Australia ‘in administration’

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• Heathrow Flyer says:

  20 Apr20 April 10:53

  Sad to see them go. I have to agree Oz does need a couple of ‘proper’ airlines for competition. There is no real alternative for travel between its major cities.

  Flew with VA a couple of times in the past and found them to be a well-run operation. On one occasion I was (literally) about to board in Brisbane when a huge thunderstorm drfited over the airfield. Flight was cancelled as a result but I was quickly and seemlessly rebooked on a later departure to Melbourne that evening.

• mr_jetlag says:

  20 Apr20 April 11:42

  Could be the Northern rock or Lehmans moment for the industry? Will this also mean that VS will be allowed to go to the wall rather than create a divergence for the UK/AU govs?

  • Rob says:

    20 Apr20 April 11:45

    AU Government may still buy it from administration. Issue here is debt, though. Virgin Atlantic had no trouble paying its debts in the first place but they did require the airline to be flying.

    • Thomas Howard says:

      20 Apr20 April 12:38

      Isn’t there an issue that business failures are going to end up as bad debt to the banks and they too will need another bail out? We’re not even experiencing the first wave of this yet economically. Everything from shopping centres to minor buy to let landlords could end up facing structural changes in demand and defaulting on their huge loans.

      National governments could end up owning everything.

      • Sean says:

        20 Apr20 April 14:45

        Bank bailouts last time were due to lack of liquidity not bad debts. Their capital stress tests will be more severe than the coronavirus impacts (unless we are in lockdown for 18 months or so) and most are awash with cash at the moment. Do you see anyone paying up for retail savings – no everyone is slashing rates as they don’t need money.

    • Chrisasaurus says:

      20 Apr20 April 14:26

      Indeed and while it might not be historically have been any more successful than your average lifestyle business, it isnt an unreasonably assumption to run the business on that operations will continue at least in some form month to month – not may businesses are/were setup to deal with this situation.

      Have to feel sorry for them to some extent

• Dan says:

  20 Apr20 April 11:45

  I’ve got a flight with VA in May…no longer. Curve have been hopeless in facilitating a charge back…anybody know any contacts at curve to escalate?

  • Lady London says:

    20 Apr20 April 11:50

    Ouch.
    Suspect you’re in a paypal-like be situation with curve as an intermediary and your contract not with the aurline,? So s.75 in not available.

    I’d be checking my insurance policy hoping it was covered there.

  • Thomas Howard says:

    20 Apr20 April 12:32

    I have managed to get a charge back through Curve, although it was like pulling teeth with the level of evidence they wanted proving I’d tried to resolve it directly. Once they finally raised it it took about 45 days.

    Just keep pestering them, insisting it’s now the only way it can be resolved.

  • Vicky says:

    20 Apr20 April 12:38

    Curve has purchase protection upto £30,000 and I have challenged them on one of my charge back. They are jumping on prejudice outcome before even passing the dispute to Mastercard or investigating.

• guesswho2000 says:

  20 Apr20 April 11:49

  Have to see what’ll happen with Velocity points…Velocity is profitable, but pretty useless without an airline.

  That aside, I’d still be sad to see VA fail, they’re a great carrier and we need them to keep QF in check; we’ll all be paying for it otherwise.

• N says:

  20 Apr20 April 11:59

  How are VS and VA connected? Are they?

  • Rhys says:

    20 Apr20 April 12:11

    They aren’t, really.

    • Pedantic Pete says:

      20 Apr20 April 13:48

      The main relationship as far as HfP goes is that 95% of the time that anyone is discussing “VA” in the comments, they actually mean VS, but they’re too stupid to understand the difference. Exciting to genuinely have some content about VA!

      • Rob says:

        20 Apr20 April 14:55

        We have a very broad readership. We aim the site at people who travel for business but who neither know nor care much about aviation itself. The people who comment are generally more knowledgeable but we don’t assume knowledge of airline codes. They are NEVER used in articles.

        • The Savage Squirrel says:

          20 Apr20 April 15:25

          “discussing “VA” in the comments, they actually mean VS, but they’re too stupid to understand the difference.”

          @PedanticPete If you’re too thick to understand that nearly the whole world use uses first-letter-of-the-word abbreviations for names (such as TLAs) all the time, yet nobody outside a tiny weird avgeek community uses airline codes; that’s your own issue. We all have our own weird jargon in our specialist fields. People who attempt to bamboozle those outside their narrow field with insider jargon or belittle them for not knowing it, rather than tailor their message so it can be read more widely, are generally trying to hide their own lack of knowledge or communication skill; or just too stupid/lazy to communicate clearly.

        • Sam says:

          20 Apr20 April 19:17

          @The Savage Squirrel This is a bit different. I understand your point but VA is NEVER used by Virgin Atlantic in the first place in any day-to-day business, nor would they refer themselves this way.

          Using your first-letter-of-the-word abbreviation rule, both Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Australia are also VA.

          Thus, there is nothing wrong to correct someone who will cause confusion to others by making up their own abbreviations. A regular traveler with common sense should know how to distinguish and not to confuse the two. I would be surprised if a regular traveler lacks awareness of IATA codes, it is not a privilege of avgeeks, as everyone who travels regularly would know this is how to hop on to a right aircraft.

          On travel forums I do see people reportedly correct others about misusing the abbreviation AA for Air Asia as it clearly leads to a confusion. Again Air Asia has never referred themselves as AA and so shouldn’t others. Your point will be valued more for a discussion about memorising aircraft names e.g. B777/A330 etc.

        • Luckyjim says:

          21 Apr21 April 01:57

          TLDR

      • sayling says:

        21 Apr21 April 09:45

        Harsh and unnecessary, @PedanticPete

  • Lady London says:

    20 Apr20 April 12:14

    Virgin Australia is actually mainly owned by Chinese interests.

    Just like Virgin Atlantic here, it’s a Virgin label stuck on some assets (or rental agreements).

    • Rhys says:

      20 Apr20 April 12:15

      Well, Virgin Group own a whole lot more of Atlantic than they do of Australia…

    • ChrisBCN says:

      20 Apr20 April 16:54

      It’s VINO, Virgin In Name Only

• The Savage Squirrel says:

  20 Apr20 April 12:16

  Agree this does look like a classic case where the business itself does have some value so debt-for-equity should be able to salvage something in what is not a Flybe-joke-and-basket-case type business. The shareholders can accept their now 0.00001% stake and like it … that’s the deal with investing in equities. Differing jurisdictions aside, VS is very much in the same category…

• Lloyd says:

  20 Apr20 April 12:25

  My VA flights in June were cancelled by them some weeks ago as the route had been withdraan. I held out from doing anything until I was formally notified, but every time I logged into my booking it stated the tickets were still confirmed.
  Got sick of waiting so disputed yesterday as VA are only offering travel credits which were as good as useless for a visit that I’m highly unlikely to reschedule in the next year. This despite the T&C’s at the time of booking stating I’m due a cash refund. They retrospectively have changed the T&C’s now that removes the need to offer a refund.
  Interestingly a few hours after I started the Amex charge back process I had an email overnight from VA stating my flights have been converted into a travel credit. I’d be surprised if the timing was chance so is probably their way to try and counter my charge back request.

  • Lady London says:

    20 Apr20 April 12:43

    Changing the ts and cs cannot take away your right to z refund as

    1) you bought when different terms prevailed and they can’t change terms retroactively unilaterally
    And
    2) ec261/2004 is a statute that gives you the right to choose a refund. Statute overrides terms.

    s.75 or chargeback now by contacting your credit card. You’ve made reasonable efforts and given it more time than the 7 days ec261 requires you to be refunded within.

    • Lloyd says:

      20 Apr20 April 12:49

      Thanks, but obviously EU261 does not apply in this case as VA do not offer flights to/from UK. I see no reason why the S75 wouldn’t stick and thankfully I took screenshots of the T&C when booking. It may not matter now anyway if they are in administration depending what comes of it.

      • TGLoyalty says:

        20 Apr20 April 16:00

        The T&C’s don’t over rule your statutory rights. Worth looking up Australian consumer law to see if they have an equivalent to the sales of goods act. (You bought a flight on a date / time if they cancel it and can’t offer a reasonable alternative then you should get a refund.)

        But as they are in administration then it’s more than likely S75 is your only route to getting your money back.

        • Lady London says:

          20 Apr20 April 17:30

          s.75 then. Sorry I misread VA as VS!

          Apparently Australian consumer protection seems weaker. There has been some excellent commentary on executivetraveller dot com dot au which is a good source of info for Australia stuff. They also cover some interesting Asia stuff as there’s a lot of business done with Asia from Australia now.

• Thomas Howard says:

  20 Apr20 April 12:29

  Have they considered rebranding as “Australia #2 airline” in comic sans font to avoid the branding charges?

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.