• Our booking engine at tickets.railforums.co.uk (powered by TrainSplit) helps support the running of the forum with every ticket purchase! Find out more and ask any questions/give us feedback in this thread!

British airways and travel industry job loses

Status
Not open for further replies.

Tetchytyke

Veteran Member
Joined
12 Sep 2013
Messages
13,304
Location
Isle of Man
Nice. That's 8,300 jobs you're talking about.

Then they can ask Richard Branson (net worth: £3,800,000,000.00) for some spare change.

Forcing his staff to have unpaid leave whilst he suns himself on his Carribbean island is showing him up for what he is: a parasite. Good to see the British public finally cottoning on.

I feel for anyone working in aviation facing redundancy, but I hope Virgin fail ahead of more honest and decent airlines (like any of them, really).
 
Sponsor Post - registered members do not see these adverts; click here to register, or click here to log in
R

RailUK Forums

WatcherZero

Established Member
Joined
25 Feb 2010
Messages
10,272
Hardly sat sunning himself on his island. In the last three weeks hes been launching a drug strategy for the UK as part of the Global Commission on Drug Policy, promoting a design biography book on Virgins corporate design history, promoting a project to provide solar panels to hurricane ravaged Caribbean communities and promoting his hotel chain. Quite a busy schedule.
 

Tetchytyke

Veteran Member
Joined
12 Sep 2013
Messages
13,304
Location
Isle of Man
Quite a busy schedule.

...of rampant self-promotion.

Shame his busy schedule didn't extend to helping the Flybe staff he put out of work and the VS staff who are now facing a similar fate. Funny how it's frontline staff who have to take the pain, and then the taxpayer takes the second hit for unpaid wages and redundancy. It's never Dicky.

Anyway, I hope no airline goes bust. But if one has to go bust, I hope Virgin go first. IAG pay tax here, Dicky doesn't, so I also hope any taxpayer help explicitly excludes companies based in the BVI.

I assume VS will go, purely to let Delta dump the liabilities they don't want.
 
Last edited:

WatcherZero

Established Member
Joined
25 Feb 2010
Messages
10,272
Over £50 million was ploughed into Flybe after it was bought, if a certain other airline hadn't taken the government to court to prevent a loan on commercial terms then perhaps it could have survived.
 

Tetchytyke

Veteran Member
Joined
12 Sep 2013
Messages
13,304
Location
Isle of Man
if a certain other airline hadn't taken the government to court to prevent a loan on commercial terms then perhaps it could have survived.

Once again, Branson is worth £3.8bn. I'm sure he could have found the dough for a commercial loan somewhere, instead of expecting the taxpayer to foot the bill.

I see he's repeating the trick with VS.
 

WatcherZero

Established Member
Joined
25 Feb 2010
Messages
10,272
Well I guess under that logic there should be no public support for the Waterman Railway Heritage Trust either since Pete Waterman who owns the company (Trust is set up as a Ltd company with him the largest shareholder) is worth £50m yet it receives public grants.
 
Last edited:

Tetchytyke

Veteran Member
Joined
12 Sep 2013
Messages
13,304
Location
Isle of Man
Waterman Railway Heritage Trust

I genuinely have no idea what you're wibbling about here, given the example you've just chosen is a charity and therefore not "owned" by anyone.

The taxpayer is on the hook, through the National Insurance fund, for unpaid wages and redundancy payments for Flybe. This despite the fact their owner is worth four billion quid and registers his companies in the BVI to avoid UK tax. If VS falls over, the same will apply again.

I don't think taxpayer money should be used to prop up a business owned by a guy worth four billion quid, especially not at a time when small businesses will be going to the wall daily. Clearly a controversial opinion, but heaven knows why.
 

Meerkat

Established Member
Joined
14 Jul 2018
Messages
7,416
I don't think taxpayer money should be used to prop up a business owned by a guy worth four billion quid, especially not at a time when small businesses will be going to the wall daily

Do you understand the concept of limited liability in business?
 

Tetchytyke

Veteran Member
Joined
12 Sep 2013
Messages
13,304
Location
Isle of Man
Do you understand the concept of limited liability in business?

Yes, it's a way for multi-billionaire Richard Branson to get the taxpayer to pay Flybe's redundancy payments for him. "Not my liability, even though I owned the gaff". All legal and above board and, of course, thoroughly unethical.

Not sure what relevance this has to Branson demanding taxpayer cash to bail out his failing airline though? If he wants to protect his asset, he has the spare capital. Instead he puts his staff on unpaid leave and demands huge wedges of taxpayers' cash, all from the luxury of his private Caribbean island.

But he's a busy man, he's got a book to promote :lol:

Clearly "get the multi-billionaire to spend his own money on his own asset" is a controversial opinion.
 

Meerkat

Established Member
Joined
14 Jul 2018
Messages
7,416
Limited liability is not unethical, without it a lot of these businesses would exist all.
You just have a hatred of Branson - he doesn’t even own all of Virgin or Flybe
 

Tetchytyke

Veteran Member
Joined
12 Sep 2013
Messages
13,304
Location
Isle of Man
Limited liability is not unethical

Limited liability is a way of privatising profit and nationalising risk. If a venture works the owner(s) keep the proceeds, but if it blows up in their face the taxpayer has to mop everything up. I understand the theory behind it- entrepreneurs wouldn't take risks without it- but in reality it is just an asset stripper's wet dream.

Rinse the business, grab all you can, then whoops! Not my problem, mate, my personal liability's limited to a quid. Balls to the taxpayer and balls to the small businesses that were owed millions and will now go bust too. But I'll buy it back out of administration if you want...

You just have a hatred of Branson - he doesn’t even own all of Virgin or Flybe

He owns 51% of VS and about 15% of Flybe (VS owned 30%, he owns half of VS).

Yes, I do have a hatred of Branson. Why? Because he's built a four billion quid wealth out of dodging tax in the BVI, sponging off the taxpayer, and suing the NHS when he doesn't get his own way. He's as bad as any of the Russian oligarchs. But clearly you think these are positive qualities, so meh!
 

Meerkat

Established Member
Joined
14 Jul 2018
Messages
7,416
Limited liability is a way of privatising profit and nationalising risk.
And your alternative? Not employing the people in the first place?
Need to sort out living wills for things others have to cover - repatriation etc - but otherwise what risk is being nationalised?
 

Tetchytyke

Veteran Member
Joined
12 Sep 2013
Messages
13,304
Location
Isle of Man
And your alternative?

Call me old-fashioned, but how about the owners being on the hook instead? You know, like everyone else is?

The Captain goes down with the ship, yeah?

I'm sure Philip Green and the Rover Four would have behaved *very* differently if they'd had to share the pain.

otherwise what risk is being nationalised?

As I'm sure you know, unpaid wages and payments in lieu of notice are covered by the NI fund if an employer goes bust. Failed pensions are covered by the Pensions Regulator.

Not to mention the catastrophic effect for smaller suppliers who don't get paid. And the effect on the public who don't receive services they've paid for. And the effect on banks who end up paying for claims on credit cards (a risk which is now priced into these products).

For VS, there's also repatriation costs, of course. Thomas Cook cost £156m.
 
Last edited:

ian959

Member
Joined
9 May 2009
Messages
483
Location
Perth, Western Australia
Once again, Branson is worth £3.8bn. I'm sure he could have found the dough for a commercial loan somewhere, instead of expecting the taxpayer to foot the bill.

I see he's repeating the trick with VS.

The often quoted "worth" figures for people are educated guesses and paper values only. They are indeed rarely very accurate to boot. It does not mean that those people have loads of cash sitting around in bank accounts doing nothing. Why people don't understand that is beyond my comprehension. As for the alleged sponging off the taxpayer, that is exactly what you and I would do if the situation allowed it - would you refuse enhanced unemployment benefits if they were offered to you? Government allows that to happen, no reason to blame Branson or any other billionaire for that. Government does that on the basis of weighing up the economic benefit of spending that money against the likely economic costs of losing the jobs. If you don't like it then complain to your MP. It may not be right - yes, the government should let private companies go to the wall in my view - but I can well understand governments reasons for wanting to bail private companies out, especially in the current situation where the real possible economic effect could be a depression that would make the Great Depression look like a walk in the park.
 

Meerkat

Established Member
Joined
14 Jul 2018
Messages
7,416
The often quoted "worth" figures for people are educated guesses and paper values only
And if Branson’s worth is derived from his shareholding’s it most certainly wont still be that quoted!
The taxation issue is a different issue. If you bin limited liability then you bin most business!
 

Tetchytyke

Veteran Member
Joined
12 Sep 2013
Messages
13,304
Location
Isle of Man
If you bin limited liability then you bin most business!

All those self-employed sole traders say otherwise.

All those in small limited companies who have to give personal guarantees also say otherwise.

Limited companies are a relatively modern invention, dating from 1855, and were created precisely to protect owners of businesses from the consequences of failure.

With the way shareholdings are now traded, leaving shareholders on the hook wouldn't necessarily work. But the directors should be personally liable for unpaid redundancy and failed pensions before anything comes out of the NI fund.

The current system is an asset stripper's paradise, as the Rover Four so gleefully proved.

As for the alleged sponging off the taxpayer, that is exactly what you and I would do if the situation allowed it

Speak for yourself.

would you refuse enhanced unemployment benefits if they were offered to you?

I would if I had a job, yes.

It does not mean that those people have loads of cash sitting around in bank accounts doing nothing.

Aye, I'm sure Dicky is down to his last twenty quid in liquid assets :lol:

Anyway, back on topic. IAG are a net contributor to the economy in the UK and I'd hope help would be available for them. Virgin- in all their forms- are not, with their businesses posting losses in the UK and profits in the BVI. And so I'd hope they'd be invited to go swivel.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Top