Virgin Australia stands down staff across marketing, partnerships, media and brand
Virgin Australia has stood down staff members across its brand, consumer and media teams as the airline continues to face the fallout from travel restrictions and non-existent revenue as a result of COVID-19 (coronavirus).
Rapthi Thanapalasingam, head of brand, consumer and media at Virgin Australia, said standing so many team members down was potentially the toughest day she’s had in her career.
Virgin could emerge from this crisis looking quite different
“Today was the toughest day I’ve had at Virgin Australia, maybe even in my career, having had to stand down so many team members for a couple of months,” she said on LinkedIn last week.
She urged her network to employ the stood-down staff – with skills in brand marketing, campaign management, partnerships marketing, media planning and design – for short-term projects.
Virgin Australia said the impact on people of these stand-down decisions was significant, so it wouldn’t be offering a team-by-team commentary.
It did, however, point to a statement from the brand in late March, which noted it had to reduce its cost base in order to emerge on the other side of this crisis. 8,000 of its 10,000 strong workforce will be stood down until at least the end of May.
CEO and managing director Paul Scurrah noted the way the company operates in the future may be quite different to its traditional structure.
“My focus has been on guiding this company through the crisis, and at the same time ensure the business is set on a sustainable path when the recovery eventually comes,” he said.
“I am only too aware of how much our people are hurting at the moment, and these very tough decisions have weighed heavily on me and my leadership team. We are talking to our teams and we are working hard to do what we can to protect jobs and extend payments for as long as possible.”
Over the weekend, Virgin Australia kicked off a campaign warning the public about the dangers of a future in which Qantas is Australia’s only surviving airline. It called on regulators to “keep the air fair” and warned “a monopoly in Australian skies will be good for no-one”.
The ad on page 28 of Saturday’s The Daily Telegraph (Click to enlarge)
Danielle Keighery, Virgin Australia’s chief experience officer, added on LinkedIn: “We know everyone wants us to keep the air fair. We have been doing it for 20 years and are determined to do it for many more years to come.”
“Today was the toughest day I’ve had at Virgin Australia, maybe even in my career, having had to stand down so many team members for a couple of months,”
I’m pretty sure the day was a lot tougher for those people you stood down..at least you still had a gig at the end of your ‘tough day’…
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You can show empathy for both without having a dig.
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Chief Experience Officer…..WTF?
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I appreciate the difficulty of the situation and am extremely sorry to hear of the losses to employees across Virgin, Velocity and all their associated businesses. My friends, associates and connections are amongst those stood down, and I am sorry for your current situation.
It’s very difficult, but Virgin – please pay your tax before coming cap in hand at this extraordinary time.
It is my view that there is a significant tone-deafness with the very prevalent LinkedIn posts from your staff, and ads now mainstream media lobbying for Government money given that Virgin have paid ZERO tax on revenues of $23,431,281,904 over the last 5 years.
Michael West, the Guardian and the ABC have covered you extensively, and others including Qantas in the past:
Current & 2020 – https://www.michaelwest.com.au/australias-top-40-tax-dodgers-2020-fossil-fuels-dominate-once-more/ (Zero Tax in the last 5 Years)
2018 – https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-02-14/why-many-big-companies-dont-pay-corporate-tax/9443840
No Tax Paid Since “at least 2013” – In the cutthroat aviation industry, not one of Australia’s major airlines has paid corporate tax since at least 2013, including Virgin and its subsidiary Tigerair.
Back pre- 2013 there was blame to the carbon tax et al – https://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-08-30/virgin-swings-to-loss/4924368
An overview with some commentary and a response from the Virgin CEO: https://www.michaelwest.com.au/virgin-australia-holdings-limited/
2019 – https://www.michaelwest.com.au/top-40-tax-dodgers-2019/
2018 – https://www.michaelwest.com.au/tax-dodgers-2018/
And then there’s all the other crap – https://www.michaelwest.com.au/shady-brothers-in-pursuit-of-virgin-australias-chinese-pilot-school-partners/
https://treasury.gov.au/sites/default/files/2019-03/Virgin.pdf
Qantas isn’t any better, but please don’t lecture us at this time about the virtues of a competitive market, how you’re compliant with relevant tax legislation, how you’re competing in a market and and how hard it is to lay people off or to stand them down. Everyone is going through a similar situation you come over as being very out of touch, and particularly tone deaf at the moment.
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Isn’t it about time that these huge companies had to build in some kind of mechanism, whereby the huge profits that they have made in previous years, should not be removed from the business into shareholders pockets every single year, but are kept aside for times like this?
And rather than buy ads in newspapers, you could have paid numerous staff their salary for another month.
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I find it interesting people are blaming Virgin here and saying they pay no taxes, so should not be supported. Their competitor Qantas has not paid tax for ten years as mentioned by this report: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-02-14/why-many-big-companies-dont-pay-corporate-tax/9443840
So if you want to call a spade a spade, you most well compare what a monopoly looks like under Qantas too.
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The amount of people who think that corporate should be levied on revenue is truly shocking. Tax is paid on profit. Virgin have not made a profit and therefore have no tax obligation.
michael west, like the rest of the journalists at the ABC and the guardian, lack a fundamental understanding of the corporate tax system. They see a big company and a big number, that goes against their socialist values so they jump up and down.
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To itsdifficult:
In case you’re unaware, you pay income tax on profit in AU, not on revenue.
VA has been making losses for years, therefore no income tax payable, the same as any other company in its situation.
It’s not tax evasion, it’s correct application of tax law.
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Hmm, so the companies don’t pay taxes while listing profits? This may still be okay if the people receiving those profits pay their fair share of tax. Likelihood low but it’s still part of the story that has not been mentioned.
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If you’ve been making a loss for years what’s the point in the tax payer bailing you out?
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Hey Tracey,
Michael West wrote for the Australian for 8 years.
Now, let’s assume you are not offended by companies using offshore accounts to make sure they don’t earn a profit in Australia… Do you recommend other Australian companies do these little tricks. It could be good for the economy!
Let’s make sure we collect only tax from people salaries and people’s purchases, not corporations… Fuck the people!
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I am no expert on corporate tax etc but yes any business from a sole trader to a multi national only pay tax on net profits. Its been that way whether we like it or not. I am also a loyal Virgin customer and from what i can see the company has been running routes that dont pay. The US is one of them and flights up to Asia have never paid. So why continue with them?
Management leads from the top and now the people lower down are paying for these mistakes made by previous CEO`s and the like. The airline business is not for the Aussie taxpayer to bail out. Virgin has 4 major shareholders. If they beleive in their company then they need to stump up the cash to keep it afloat
and not the Aussie tax payers.
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Don’t forget they did employ over 10000 direct staff and thousands more indirectly who all pay a lot of tax individually – i think all those staff would be happy to combine all their taxes together if it meant a bailout from the government and jobs could continue
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It’s difficult works for Qantas.
Anyway, if you support Virgin and keeping the air fair and it’s staff please sign and spread the petition!
https://www.change.org/p/scott-morrison-keep-virgin-australia-in-the-skies
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Jen,
Unfortunately Yes. Very, very aware. And I am equally aware of many of the opportunities that I and other Australian entities could personally, and in a corporate capacity that I could take to restructure a number of businesses over different duristrictions with IP and Brand Assets held in various regions along side licensing and financial structures for leases of equipments et al – all to minimise the profitability of a local entity and siphon funds to countries with much lower corporate tax legislation. So Yes. Very, very aware.
Equally, I could look to structure out of Ireland, Holland and the Dutch Antilles (or BVI) to complicate and obfuscate the final ownership and holding structures, allowing the owners the opportunity to further rort the licensing system further.
But I don’t. I pay my tax on revenues and profit where they are made because I am grateful for the hand(s) that feed me.
Is there something specific that you feel that I didn’t grasp in the original information that I posted above.
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So…what happens if a company creates a large expense to be paid to a parent company. Eg. Large consulting fee to overseas, resulting in no profit in australia?
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Exactly , this company is full of WTF positions ie cooperate welfare, no wonder they are in soo much trouble
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Virgin Australia have a “spare” airline tucked away, called Tiger. They have ceased flying for the moment however in the event virgin Australia fold, tiger can be rebranded and operate with lower cost base , simplified consistent fleet , remove EBA workers Keep a consistent cost base and their you have it “virgin express”….
Virgin Australia purchased tiger as a strategic move to block any further airlines in Australia who would compete against them. So all these rumours of another airline coming in, well everyone has forgotten about tiger and a rebrand
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I would say the difference between Qantas and Virgin is that it is only Virgin that has asked for money.
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Nope, won’t be signing that. I’d sign a petition not to give 1.4 billion to Virgin though, I’m fed up of this particular aircraft noise.
Personally, I did like it better when the person sitting next to me on a flight wasn’t wearing football shorts, a smelly singlet, and thongs (in business class). That’s just me, but thanks for that experience Virgin.
I’d prefer to pay a little more each time I fly. just to void the experience.
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Qantas has asked for money now too though … Yes, after VA did but Alan Joyce still asked for some …
Plus, isn’t it always good to have some competition – keeps you honest? Australia only has two main airlines groups so we can’t let one take over the entire market – consumers will be ripped off to no end.
And yes, the govt announced $700mill to support the industry, but the money was only on fuel excise & other fees paid – with them not operating very much, so this money actually does very little.
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Oh yes … remove the EBA workers because that’s such a smart idea *eyeroll*
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Visiting Rapthi’s LinkedIn page, then seeing all the related connections on the right, it makes absolute sense how VA have got themselves into this position. Some of the ridiculous positions, as mentioned above, Chief Experience Officer, blows my mind together with every 2nd one being a “manager” or “lead”. I’m sure most of these come with a nice, 6 figure paycheck.
If Virgin are to come out of this, they need to drain that swamp of all useless positions and go back to basics.
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You’ll be paying a lot more for that “experience” when there’s no competition.
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