Branson fights air battle with Qantas
BILLIONAIRE Richard Branson has accused Qantas of flooding Australia’s air corridors with planes in an attempt to put airline Virgin Australia out of business.
The boss of Virgin Group, which owns 10 per cent of Virgin Australia, also attacked Qantas for seeking financial help from the federal government in 2014 when it was struggling to make money. The British billionaire was in Melbourne yesterday morning speaking to journalists before hopping onto the inaugural Virgin flight to Hong Kong, marking the beginning of the airline’s expansion into China.
The event involved Mr Branson carrying the head of a 32m long Chinese dragon called Yar Loong through Tullamarine airport surrounded by drummers and lion dancers.
But it was the knighted billionaire’s comments about Qantas which stole the show.
“We’ve had Qantas throw everything they can at us and it has cost them more than it cost us,” Mr Branson said, referring to the capacity war in 2014. “They had to go cap in hand to the government ... the government quite rightly told them that it’s up to them to compete on a fair, level playing field.”
He said Qantas then started to behave more “sensibly” and tweaked their domestic flight services.
“The end result is they proved they did not need those billions they were asking government for,” Mr Branson said.
He said at the time Virgin needed to strongly lobby the Abbott government.
“We had to lobby very hard to say to them, look, do you want two airlines in Australia, or do you want one airline in Australia?” Mr Branson said.
Virgin Australia boss John Borghetti yesterday said that the new flight route to China was just the start of Virgin’s expansion into the region.
Mr Branson said the airline has applied for 21 new slots at Hong Kong airport which he is hoping will cover departures from Sydney and Brisbane.
Virgin Australia shares increased 3.03 per cent to 17c.