Richard Branson Asks the UK to Bail His Airline Out
Tycoon Richard Branson is trying to convince the UK government to give his Virgin Atlantic airline a £500-million bailout to help it get by the coronavirus pandemic and the economic fallout of the lockdown, The St. Kitts & Nevis Observer reports.
The billionaire, who also wants £700 million from the Australian government to bailout Virgin Australia, has the backing of bosses at Airbus, which makes Virgin’s planes, and Rolls-Royce, which makes its jet engines, who have warned ministers that if the airline collapsed it could drag them down too.
At the weekend, Manchester Airports Group chief, Charlie Cornish, added his name to the list of travel industry bosses desperate for Virgin to survive, saying in a letter to chancellor, Rishi Sunak, that Virgin flights “are directly benefiting the economies of Manchester and the surrounding region”.
Branson, who founded Virgin Atlantic in 1984 and retains a 51% stake alongside US airline Delta with 49%, is pleading for UK government support. And he has the industry’s backing.
But Branson’s plea has prompted a substantial backlash, with many pointing out that the entrepreneur has paid the exchequer no personal income tax since moving to the tax free British Virgin Islands (BVI) 14 years ago, the local newspaper report goes on.
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Branson, who is the 312th richest person in the world with an estimated $5.2 billion (£4.2 billion) paper fortune, told staff the company faced a “massive battle to survive and save jobs”.
He pledged to inject $250 million into Virgin Group, his empire that stretches from planes and trains to health clubs and spaceships and employs some 70,000 people. The $250 million pledge – of which $100 million is thought to be earmarked for the airline – is 5% of his fortune.
Thousands of staff across the group, including 8,000 working for Virgin Atlantic, have been put on extended leave or asked to take voluntary redundancy.
