Virgin Australia has gone into voluntary administration, so it will soon be ceasing operations, unless the Australian government bails it out. Virgin Australia started operations in 2000 under the name of Virgin Blue. The airline became more popular in 2001 when Ansett Australia ceased operations. Virgin Blue didn’t have many market alliances, but after the collapse of Ansett Australia, it started one with United Airlines (an American airline that is the 4th biggest in the USA). In 2008, Virgin Blue created a new subsidiary called V Australia. Then, in late 2010, it made alliances with Etihad Airways (the flag carrier of the UAE) and Air New Zealand (the flag carrier of New Zealand). On the 7th of May 2010, CEO Brett Godfrey announced that he would be stepping down, after having steered his airline through the difficulties that it had encountered in the skies since its creation in the year 2000. When his replacement, John Borghetti, the former executive general manager of Qantas (the Australian flag carrier), came, he brought with him some of the members of staff that were previously under his control when he was at Qantas, causing many of the key Virgin Blue staff to leave. In 2011, the airline was rebranded as Virgin Australia, and V Australia as well as several other subsidiaries were folded into Virgin Australia. 7 years after Borghetti became the CEO of Virgin Atlantic, he stepped down before the end of of his contract in the month of January this year. Soon afterwards, Paul Scurrah became the CEO of the company. In March 2020, the airline grounded 53 planes due to the coronavirus. From then on, the airline began to come across more and more financial difficulties. On the 16th of April, the Federal Government of Australia decided that it would subsidize some of Virgin Australia’s services. Two days later, the government of Queensland (a region in Australia) offered $200 million in an attempt to bail out the airline, but Virgin Australia still decided to go into voluntary administration today. I personally doubt that Virgin Australia is going to survive, but we never know… 21st of April 2020.
Aeronews24 