Virgin Atlantic abandons plan for Government bailout, has five weeks to find a buyer (Telegraph)

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

• mr_jetlag says:

  27 Apr27 April 16:07

  Public Service Announcement:

  VS [may] / [may not] go bust [this year] / [this month] / [next Tuesday].
  Moving your miles from VS is [a bad idea] / [a good idea] / [an idea you probably should have had last month, as it’s too late to do anything].
  The government definitely [should] / [shouldn’t] bail out Virgin Atlantic because [insert well reasoned argument others have made before on previous articles] / [I’m secretly afraid of losing my miles balance]

  Sorry, it’s been a long day trying to look interested on Zoom…

  • Novice says:

    27 Apr27 April 16:14

    🤣😂

• Novice says:

  27 Apr27 April 16:12

  Can’t believe ppl are still arguing about this 😂

  • Novice says:

    27 Apr27 April 16:47

    I can’t stop laughing 😂 thanks for the laughs guys 😜

    • J says:

      27 Apr27 April 16:49

      Bless.

      • Novice says:

        27 Apr27 April 16:54

        👍 Blessed forever….

      • Bazza says:

        28 Apr28 April 01:00

        Oh, my nans here!

• ChrisC says:

  27 Apr27 April 17:29

  I see there are still “tax-dodger” posts

  VS as a company pays all the taxes it is due to pay under UK law so corporation tax, VAT, employers NIC, business rates etc etc etc

  What tax Branson pays on any dividends or royalty payments he may get from VS is a totally different matter.

  • Johnny Tabasco says:

    27 Apr27 April 18:04

    Well let’s just sweep that under the carpet where it belongs…

    • TGLoyalty says:

      27 Apr27 April 23:20

      Sweeps what under the carpet. What tax do you pay on 0 income 🤔

  • Josh says:

    27 Apr27 April 22:15

    They are likely the same people harking on about “suing the NHS” and who would love to have “free nationalised broadband”.

  • MJ says:

    27 Apr27 April 22:38

    Let’s go through those taxes.

    Corp Tax – Unlikely to be paying much over the past 10 years given lack of profitability
    VAT & APD – If people didn’t fly with VS, they’d likely fly with another airline, so its the spending driving that not VS
    NIC – If there was really that much demand for the flights VS runs, another airline would pick up the slack and hire more people (maybe not as many sure, but hardly a big contribution)
    Business Rates – Yeah I accept this.

    I very much doubt VS contributes enough to the UK economy by way of taxes/employment/competition for BA that it merits a £500m loan which may not be paid back if the business collapses and also may not even make a dent in what they need given this lockdown may last longer and air travel demand may be affected for quite some time.

    • TGLoyalty says:

      27 Apr27 April 23:25

      If people don’t fly X they are likely to fly Y is an interesting argument.

      Less competition = higher prices could = less people using the services. Perhaps people would use BA AA United KLM AF etc etc or perhaps they would go somewhere else instead of the USA.

      If they used anyone except BA that’s likely to mean less people in uk employed directly and indirectly which means less NI, less Income tax And less VAT as there is a lower GDP.

      • MJ says:

        28 Apr28 April 00:11

        Considering VS transport only only ~5 million people I don’t really think prices would increase that much. NYC for example is served by a few airlines, admittedly some being in partnership. Maybe to places such as Cape Town where BA is the only alternative but a large amount of VS’s destinations are tourism spots, or covered at least by BA and the national carrier of that country.

        Also just searched and found air travel is 0 rated for VAT so no direct impact

        Perhaps we would lose out on NI, Income Tax, perhaps not, that’s speculation based on whether people would fly if prices did indeed increase and then if they would use BA or a foreign airline.
        If people end up not flying then the money they’d have spent on flights may just be used to buy other things such as physical goods, helping other businesses.

        Hard to tell what would happen I guess, but I just don’t think the UK gov should bail out a company owned by a tax dodger who likely uses every trick in the book to pay as little taxes as he can personally and from the companies he owns and then has the cheek to ask his employees to take unpaid leave.

  • James says:

    27 Apr27 April 22:38

    It isn’t really another matter. VS has rarely made a profit but has happily been paying royalties every year, so whereas there has been little corporation tax paid, there might have been substantial taxes that would have been payable on the royalties, had the beneficiary of those royalties not chosen to structure affairs in a way that starves HMT of those taxes. When the company shows even less prospect of making a profit, given reduced demand, it’s really only the royalties that are being protected and it’s no surprise that Beardy wants to protect those. It’s not for HMT to bail him out. VS was barely viable in good years.

    • TGLoyalty says:

      27 Apr27 April 23:21

      The royalty is paid to VHG which is a UK ltd company.

      • MJ says:

        28 Apr28 April 00:23

        Are you sure the royalties are paid to VHG and not the holding company the whole of the Virgin Group come under (which is based in BVI)? Actually interested to see.

• luckyjim says:

  27 Apr27 April 19:28

  *its

• doug terry says:

  29 Apr29 April 10:49

  I feel sorry for VA’s 10,000 staff and probable another 5,000 who support VA cleaners baggage handlers and outside catering firms.

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