The slimmed-down Virgin Australia, purchased by Bain Capital in June, has announced that it will slash 3,000 jobs – roughly one-third of its former 9,000 strong workforce:
The private equity firm’s plan for the airline sees the end of the Tiger Australia brand, although Virgin Australia said it would retain the air operator certificate so it could revive a low-cost carrier when the domestic holiday travel market fully recovered…
Virgin Australia chief executive Paul Scurrah said the airline had no choice but to shrink to survive amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Demand for domestic and short-haul international travel is likely to take at least three years to return to pre-COVID-19 levels, with the real chance it could be longer, which means as a business we must make changes to ensure the Virgin Australia Group is successful in this new world,” he said in a statement…
Mr Scurrah said the airline plans to employ around 6,000 people “when the market recovers, with aspirations for up to 8,000 in the future”.
However, many of those 6,000 staff who are currently stood down will remain on JobKeeper payments until those expire in March next year.
Their pay will be reduced in October, when the level of JobKeeper payment for full-time workers falls from $1,500 to $1,200, while part-time staff payments will halve to $750.
The job losses are better than expected. In July, Virgin flagged that half of its jobs would be axed.
