What if our Australian Government bought Virgin Australia outright and so nationalised the airline?
The LibNat national government is throwing $130 billion around like there’s no tomorrow after its epic failure to quarantine Xi China’s unleashed bio weapon virus COVID-19. Rather than now simplistically resorting to a welfare state mentality misguided by medical guesswork, this imported health crisis must mot cripple Australia’s economy as taxpayer-funded Canberra blinkeredly insists.
It is only driving a deep economic depression that will quickly morph into social unrest. Australia being an island nation, can smartly reconfigure this national crisis from economic lockdown and social solitary confinement to strategic opportunities.
The media wrongly report Virgin Australia’s call for a $1.4 billion bail-out. No. Its boss Paul Scurrah has consistently appealed to LibNat Treasurer Josh Frydenberg for a bridging loan which Treasury says is available to all Australian businesses forced to shutdown operations due to Canberra’s compulsory ‘Covid-19’ shutdown edict. Interest rates are the lowest in history – what nigh 0%? Scurrah gambles that he can repay this back over 3 years – provided Canberra comes out of its taxpayer-funded bunker by the six months it promised – October 2020.
But instead of PM Scomo granting a $1.4 billion loan to Virgin Australia that likely will not be repaid in 3 years due to his own economic shutdown policy, it would be wiser and more nationally strategic for the government to buy the airline outright. Canberra’s kneejerk economic shutdown edict has forced Virgin Australia to all but cease all flight operations, cease stock trading and set to be forced to off lay 8,000 of its mostly Aussie employees in the coming weeks. Virgin Australia’s $500 million cash reserves, so denied any revenues may last only few months according investment bank analysts at Credit Suisse.
It is strategically in Australia’s national interests to let Virgin Australia fail. The bottom feeding liquidators would offer few trinkets to creditors but happily cream the spoils just as KordaMentha creamed from the Ansett carcass. It wouldn’t take long then before Canberra globalism would enforce foreign carrier undermining of QANTAS to eventually foreign control Australian airspace. Australia then would have no manufacturing, no national carrier and more beholden to second world class puppet status of imperial China.
Virgin Australia is mostly foreign owned by the likes of foreign governments: Etihad (United Arab Emirates), the Nanshan Group and HNA (Chinese Communist Party), Singapore Airlines (Singapore Government) and US Billionaire Richard Branson. This lot are not exactly broke, nor Australian.
Yet this airline must not be allowed to fail – it employs mostly Australians, some 10,000, and their are highly skilled and qualified, many coming across from the failed Ansett Airlines in 2001. What benefit relegating all these Aussies to Canberra’s soup kitchen queues?
The airline’s posted assets, mainly airliners, amount to around $6 billion, yet with Canberra’s current imposed economic shutdown of the entire Australian economy and all flights grounded, Virgin Australia’s market capitalisation is a mere $700 million odd. This is a bargain.
Analyst Michael West suggests the Australian Government buys the business under Constitutional compulsory acquisition provisions, paying a fair price (the $700 million current market value, retain all Virgin employees – the pilots, engineers, flight attendants, check-in staff, landing slots, terminals – “everything except the executives and their desk ornaments”.
Keep the aircraft flying! There is no COVID reason why Australian domestic air travel cannot continue under strict quarantine rules. Only QANTAS and this new airline as ‘Australian Airlines’ must be allowed to fly Australian skies. The spread of the imported China bat flu can be prevented by government mandatory virus pre-flight testing of passengers at airports by qualified government medical experts, mandatory mask wearing and enforcement of First World standard contagion preventative protocols.
Chuck the Chinese and Arab foreign dictators out of our airline industry. Scrap Branson’s schoolboy ‘Virgin’ branded legacy and rebrand the airline Australian Airlines and only employ Australians. And ban foreign carriers servicing Australian domestic routes like in the good old days of TAA.
Resurrect this trusted Aussie brand and nationalise it in perpetuity.
Virgin’s creditors and shareholders took a risk in a foreign owned airline and they will lose out – should have invested in QANTAS dudes!
Dozens of airlines around the globe are state-owned and supported through taxpayer-funded incentives and operate in protected domestic markets. So why not Australia? QANTAS should never have been flogged off by treacherous Keating. A 100% Australian Government owned will be government guaranteed. It will have access to interest-free finance, be able to buy fuel really cheaply. Only QANTAS and Australian Airlines will have choice takeoff and landing slots, a duolopy in the public servant captive passenger market.
Fly the Southern Cross! Australian skies, Australian aircraft flown by Australian pilots!
There is nothing wrong with protectionism when everyone else is doing it – especially imperial contaminated China!
How’s this for a list of government-owned airlines:
Aero Caribbean
Aeroflot
Aeroflot-Cargo
Aerogaviota
Aerolíneas Argentinas
Aerotaxi
Afra Airways
Afriqiyah Airways
Air Algérie
Air Bissau
Air Botswana
Air Burundi
Air Calédonie
Air Côte d’Ivoire
Air Djibouti
Air Gabon
Air Guinée
Air India
Air Ivoire
Air Jamaica
Air Kiribati
Air Koryo
Air Liberia
Air Madagascar
Air Malawi
Air Mali (1960–89)
Air Malta
Air Mauritius
Air Namibia
Air New Zealand
Air Niger
Air Niugini
Air Rwanda
Air Serbia
Air Seychelles
Air Tanzania
Air Vanuatu
Air Zaïre
Air Zimbabwe
AirBaltic
Apsara International Air
Ariana Afghan Airlines
Arkaim (airline)
Bahamasair
Bassaka Air
Belavia
Berkut Air
Biman Bangladesh Airlines
Boliviana de Aviación
Cambodia Angkor Air
Cambodia Bayon Airlines
Cameroon Airlines
Caribbean Airlines
China Airlines
Conviasa
Corporate affairs of Singapore Airlines
Croatia Airlines
Cubana de Aviación
Cyprus Airways (1947–2015)
Czech Airlines
Druk Air
Dubai Royal Air Wing
EgyptAir
Emirates (airline)
The Emirates Group
Eritrean Airlines
Ethiopian Airlines
Etihad Airways
Eurocypria Airlines
Fiji Airways
Finnair
Flydubai
Gambia International Airlines
Garuda Indonesia
Ghana Airways
Guine Bissau Airlines
Gulf Air
Iran Air
Iraqi Airways
Khabarovsk Airlines
Kuwait Airways
LADE
LAM Mozambique Airlines
Lao Airlines
LIAT
Libyan Airlines
Lina Congo
LOT Polish Airlines
Malaysia Airlines
Mandarin Airlines
Merpati Nusantara Airlines
Middle East Airlines
Myanmar Airways International
Myanmar National Airlines
Nauru Airlines
Nepal Airlines
Nigeria Airways
Norfolk Air
Oman Air
Pakistan International Airlines
Philippine Airlines
Presidential Flight (UAE)
Qatar Airways
Qatar Amiri Flight
Qatar Executive
RAM Cargo
Régie Malagache
Rossiya Airlines
Royal Air Lao
Royal Air Maroc
Royal Brunei Airlines
Royal Swazi National Airways
Royal Tongan Airlines
RwandAir
Saratov Airlines
Saudia
Scoot
Sierra Leone Airways
SilkAir
Singapore Airlines
Singapore Airlines Cargo
Solomon Airlines
South African Airways
South African Express
SriLankan Airlines
Sudan Airways
Surinam Airways
Swazi Airways
TAAG Angola Airlines
Cabo Verde Airlines
TANS Perú
TAROM
Tassili Airlines
Thai Airways
Toumaï Air Tchad
Tunisair
Uganda Airlines (1976–2001)
Uganda Airlines
Ukraine International Airlines
Ukrainian Cargo Airways
Uzbekistan Airways
Vietnam Airlines
Yemenia
Zambia Airways
Zimbabwe A