Earlier this week Virgin Australia entered administration. This came after Virgin Australia's request for government funding was denied, and their existing shareholders were unwilling to fund the airline any further. Virgin Australia allegedly owes Perth Airport about 16 million AUD in fees, including for airfield and terminal use charges. This is largely money that the…
Continue reading: Why Perth Airport Is Physically Blocking Virgin Australia Planes
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The FT is reporting that 10 parties are interested in Virgin Australia including the Virgin Group but the airline is saddled with $5billion ASD. It’s going to be a case of watch this space.
They should just put a boot on the front gear and be done with it- that would be a classic photo.
Having worked with numerous airports over the years with financially shaky, and flat-out insolvent airlines, I've never encountered such petty things as blocking aircraft.
We DID however get nasty-grams from State Attorneys and such, threatening to prevent us from using the gates and airport terminal, but never action, and even the threats were about action some 30-60 days out, not immediately. The airport in question was owned by the State. The local airport people were actually very friendly, helpful, and understanding. It was further up the political chain that people weren't so nice.
Perth Airport has shown time and time again that they prefer stepping over dollars to pick up pennies and behave like children when negotiating.
Perth Airport got into a fight with Qantas because it tried to retroactively apply a fee uplift for activity before the recontracting process was completed. They also got into a fight with Qantas about opening up new routes saying they’d only allow it if Qantas would operate these from Terminal 1 rather than T3/T4 where all of Qantas domestic and international flights run from.
This is just more validation that Perth Airport forgets who it’s main customers actually are.
Not the first time this has happened.
Back in 2001 when Ansett Australia was grounded, there was a lot of animosity in Australia towards Air New Zealand (owners). As a result the then PM of NZ had her flight blocked in Melbourne. Fascinating times.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/airlines/news/article.cfm?c_id=113&objectid=217064
“Plane blocking” happened also at Canberra airport before:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-05-25/qantas-canberra-airport-war-erupts/9798886
Qantas had a plane blocked in canberra just 2 years ago due to landing without anything resembling a commercial arrangement
Airports cost money to operate and airlines should indeed pay their overdue invoices
As an ex VA platinum before relocating back to Europe. I feel very sad about this , the last thing Australia needs is a Qantas monopoly,however VAs business model has been shaky at best. I’m glad I spent all my velocity points before they disappeared for good.
ATC is there to facilitate the safe movement of aircraft. It is not there to police or even question that movement. Adding even more complexity to the ATC job, will only reduce the quality of safety which ATC can provide.