I've got my own contacts there but thanks anyway
Sounds like VA1 under JB didn't even know whether they were competing for high margin corporate clients or not if two different people who know ex-VA insiders can't agree on this
. But I tend to think that pursuing high end corporate and high yield pax was the definately the intention at some point, you don't install business class seats in E190s, B738s, A332s and B777s and rebuild lounges in airports just for laughs, you expect and are aiming for a higher yield for those nice things. Difficult to say if they landed enough of those corporate/high yield/government accounts and pax to make a difference, probably not, and many reasons for that.
Considering that he Virgin web site was still so buggy and badly executed (to the point where it couldn't even calculate fares correctly at one point
) and the roll out and integration into Sabre being such a good idea, executed so badly, might mean that perhaps the entire IT capability of Virgin was an ongoing issue with the business to the point where it was an impediment to decision making or just simply "out to lunch" and prevented correct decisions being made. This might actually make sense with some of the peculiar decisions and the perception was that while,data speaking the airline was incompetent/not as good as Qantas at least the lived experience in the air and with the front line VA people may have papered over these cracks? Goes to the thinking of other posters where if the business can't measure what they are doing then they have no idea of what they are doing right or wrong and no idea if things in the business are getting better or worse..... So maybe Bain might be onto something there.
Speaking of lounges - whomever takes over VA2 will be in a completely different bargaining position in relation to airport owners than before, airlines will definately have the stronger bargaining position, and they will be telling airport owners how much rent reductions they will be expecting for lounge space, and they will be big rent reductions backed up with the threat of just walking away, because its a different travel and retail industry now than what it was earlier and airport owners will be the ones taking big haircuts next even if VA2 completely fails to launch. They can't exactly afford to rip down existing lounges and replace them with foot massage parlors, clothes shops and cafes at the moment can they?
I can't see any new owner of VA2 wanting to spend money to pull out and refit aircraft interiors, thats seems silly and expensive. Just like they won't be able to afford new uniforms, new branding, new paint schemes for the remaining aircraft etc etc. Just not a high priority for them I would imagine. Once travel restrictions are lifted, if you can't make money flying fully owned and depreciated B738s in a low-med fuel price environemnt in the golden triangle in Australia (with large distances and no fast rail) then you don't deserve to be in the airline business....
I can see some similarities with the commercial television businesses in Australia - they were so busy trying to cut each-others grass and one-up their competitors and they were expending all theur energy on hurting their competitors that they weren't able to respond to the internet and online streaming, which came in and rendered them dinosaurs in the space of a few years. I think its the same with airlines in some way, and this might prompt the airlines to try to co-operate a (little) bit more with each other, against common enemies such as government stupidity and monopolist airport owners for example.