AVIATION THE AUSTRALIAN,FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2016

theaustralian.com.au/businessreview 29V1 - AUSE01Z20MA

I encourage you to disregard this articledue to it containing false information and assertions.JOHN BORGHETTI, VIRGIN AUSTRALIA

Virgin Australia boss John Bor-ghetti has written to the airline’sentire roster of pilots telling themto ignore reports from a new ana-lyst firm that the carrier claims hasbeen spreading lies about its finan-cial performance.

The analyst firm, Australinea— which bills itself as a Sydney-based “independent research

AVIATION EDITOR

Tigerair is on the hunt for a newchief pilot and new internationalshort-haul routes after the low-cost carrier underwent a restruc-ture to ready itself to become anall Boeing 737-800 fleet.

The airline’s chief Rob Sharpsent out an internal email lastweek notifying staff of thechanges that will see it appoint anew chief pilot after captainHarry Holling decided to departthe company after more thanfive years in the role.

Mr Holling will step downfrom the chief pilot role earlynext year.

“Harry will remain as chiefpilot until a new person is selec-ted and inducted into the role toensurea smoothtransition. Afterthat he will remain with Tiger-air in a role to be confirmed,” MrSharp said in an email obtainedby The Australian.

The organisational changeshave seen Tigerair create a new“manager fleet transition” role totake responsibility for planning,implementation and fleet deliv-ery as Tigerair moves to a singlefleet of Boeing 737 aircraft overthe next three years.

Each of its 14 Airbus A320 air-craft will be progressively re-moved during that time andreplaced with 737s from its par-ent company Virgin Australia.

Keith Thompson, a formerEmirates pilot and CASA re-gional manager, was internallyannounced on Wednesday asTigerair’s new manager fleettransition.

The changes will also seeTigerair move a number ofadministrative functions per-formed within flight operationsto the operations department,which means Tigerair’s managerline operations Roy Dean willleave the business early nextyear.

A new team, Cabin Opera-tions and Service Capability, hasbeen created to oversee day-to-day cabin and training opera-tions. As a result of that change,Amanda Craig, head of CabinCrew Operations, has left thebusiness.

Mr Sharp said the airline wasalso on the hunt for new inter-national short-haul opportunit-ies. “Continuing to build ourchallenger brand positioningwhilst maintaining a lean lowcost organisation will be criticalto our success,” he said.

RebornTigerairseeks newchief pilotEXCLUSIVE

MITCHELL BINGEMANN

Virgin slams mystery analyst’s ‘crisis’ claimfirm” — ran an inflammatory arti-cle this week that purported to citean internal Virgin memo allegingthe airline was facing a “severecash flow crisis” with “very limitedoptions” for recovery. The articlealso suggested Virgin would facedifficulties in financing its debt inthe future.

Virgin has dismissed the articleas factually wrong. Mr Borghettion Wednesday emailed the air-line’s pilots urging them to disre-gard the article, which he saidappeared to come from a fake ad-dress and was “not from a legit-

imate or reputable business orreporting agency.”

“I am writing to highlight toyou a number of both factual inac-curacies and false and misleadingstatements included in this arti-cle,” Mr Borghetti wrote in theemail obtained by The Australian.

“Most importantly, I’d like toaddress the statement that VirginAustralia is facing a severe cashflow crisis and has very limited op-tions for recovery. These state-ments are simply false.”

The article’s errors highlightedby Mr Borghetti also included ref-

erences to Virgin’s fleet of aircraftand other spurious financial detail.The article said Virgin owns onlyeight aircraft when in fact it owns61 of its 149 aircraft.

Mr Borghetti highlighted theairline’s financial results — includ-ing its cashbalance of$1.1billion —in a bid to debunk assertions in thereport that Virgin was teetering oninsolvency.

“Through a number of liquidityinitiatives, including the equityraising and Better Business Pro-gram Virgin Australia has and iscontinuing to successfully im-

prove its liquidity and reduce itsleverage,” Mr Borghetti said.

“I encourage you to disregardthis article due to it containingfalse information and assertions.

“This article is inaccurate, ma-licious and distracting at a timewhen Virgin Australia continuesto strengthen its position.”

Virgin sent a tersely wordedemail to the site’s anonymousadministrator on Wednesdaywhich resulted in the offendingarticle being taken down. By yes-terday morning the entire site wasno longer accessible.

Virgin said it was not responsi-ble for the site being taken down,but it is understood the airline’s in-ternal security team is trying touncover the mysterious author ofthe website.

“It is important for companiesto quickly shut down these sorts ofmisleading and factually incorrectstories,” said Virgin’s public affairsboss Danielle Keighery.

“Not only was the informationcontained in the story false, butwhen we attempted to contact theauthor of the article to correct theinaccuracies we found they had a

fake address and phone numberlisted on their website and wouldnot reveal their identity.”

Attempts by The Australian tocontact the owner of Australin-ea.com also went unanswered.

Virgin this week posted anunderlying before tax loss of$3.6 million as sluggish domesticconditions dragged it to a firstquarter loss.

Virgin blamed the poor resulton a softening domestic marketthat also forced Qantas to down-grade its profit outlook for the firstsix months of the financial year.

EXCLUSIVE

MITCHELL BINGEMANN We understand that some of you may have seen or received the article titled “Virgin Australia faces financial crush”, published by australinea. I am writing tohighlight to you a number of bothfactual inaccuracies and false and misleading statements included inthis article ... I’d like to address the statement that VirginAustralia is facing a severe cashflow crisis and has very limited options for recovery. These statements are simply false.

From: John Borghetti Date: 2/11/2016 15:53 (GMT+10:00) To: Flight Crew – Group – Domestic

Overhaul brings Defence in line with Europe, saves millions

The Defence Force is set to savemillions of dollars in unnecessarycosts for it and its suppliers afterimplementing regulations that fallin line with European rules, repre-senting the biggest change in avi-ation safety at the organisation inmore than 20 years.

The regulations, known as theDefence Aviation Safety Regu-lations, replace the tailor-made setof rules for Australian Defence avi-ation that were put in place in the1990s in response to a spate of fatalaircraft accidents.

“Those regulations have servedus pretty well and protected usfrom those high accident rates ofthe past but they were unique toDefence in Australia and designedaround our internal processes from20 years ago,” said the director-general of the new Defence Avi-ation Safety Authority, AirCommodore James Hood.

“As we have outsourced a lot ofwork to industry and try to sourceaircraft from other countries andexploit global supply chains, theregulations have not served us well.

“Not only that, by imposing

very old internal processes on com-mercial entities, in many ways wehave put additional overheads onthem, which ends up costing usmore.”

The new rules, which bring Aus-tralia in line with European regu-lations being implemented byabout 30 other nations, are expect-ed to reduce the cost of overheadsfor Defence and its suppliers by asmuch as 30 per cent.

“The old regulations and theirstrict rules meant overheadsplaced on our contracting partnerswere getting charged back to us. Soit was costing everyone moremoney,” Mr Hood said.

He said the new regulationswould deliver immediate benefitsto the organisation and its part-ners, including cheaper access toglobal supply chain and mainten-ance operations. Significantly, thenew rules will also allow engineer-ing and maintenance shops toblend their workforces, meaningthere will no longer be a regulatedrequirement to have separateworkforces that are restricted towork only on civilian or militaryaircraft.

“Our regulations were so re-strictive that it was very hard to

support or exploit global supplychains, but these new regulationsmean organisations can exploitglobal supply chains at a much re-duced costs,” Mr Hood said.

“By bringing in these new regu-lations which line up with civilianregulations, companies will now beable to have one workforce thatcan work on both a civilian aircraftand a defence aircraft.

“Not only that, it means that asdefence or civil aviation workwaxes and wanes, they can balancethat across their workforce insteadof struggling in the past as theyhave.”

The regulations began in Sep-tember and will roll out throughDefence and defence industry untilthe end of 2018.

Mr Hood said there remainedtwo big risks in implementing thenew regulations.

“The first is the change of lan-guage and instruments that can bea little daunting. This means somepeople might misinterpret the in-tent of the regulations,” he said.“Then we get other people whothink they understand the new reg-ulations and run ahead too fastwhen they don’t actually under-stand them.”

MITCHELL BINGEMANN

NICCI FREEMAN

There will no longer be a requirement to have separate workforces restricted to work only on civilian or military aircraft

The federal government has rungin regulatory changes that re-quire operators of historic mili-tary aircraft to join approvedoversight organisations in a movethat will grant new powers togroups such as the AustralianWarbirds Association.

The changes means vintagemilitary aircraft, known as war-birds, currently operating onexperimental certificates willhave to transition to a limited cat-egory certificate.

Australia has about 100 war-birds that operate under theexperimental category but thoseaircraft will now have to apply fora new certificate of airworthiness,change to the limited categoryand seek approval for any mod-ifications that are not part ofthe originaldesignfromapprovedself-administering aviation or-ganisations such as the AWA.

The changes will bestow ap-proved organisations with thepower to have the final say on

whether warbird pilots and oper-ators will be given the approvalsand permissions they need to fly.

The AWA is so far the onlyorganisation to be designatedas a self-administering aviationorganisation.

The new regulations will nowalso include air racing as a pur-pose for which limited categoryaircraft may be used.

This will allow operators ofunmodified limited category air-craft, which are not eligible for acertificate of airworthiness in theexperimental category, to partici-pate in such events.

The government said thechanges had been made to im-prove the safety and adminis-tration of vintage militaryaircraft. Infrastructure andTransport Minister Darren Ches-ter said the changes, which willapply to ex-armed forces and re-stored aircraft, would alsostreamline and simplify regu-latory arrangements.

“The consolidation and clear-er set of rules will provide morecertainty around operations ofthese unique types of aircraft,”he said.

The changes have been ush-ered in under Part 132 of the CivilAviationSafetyRegulations 1998,which will include for the firsttime personal use, glider towingand air racing as authorised oper-ations under the regulations.

“While the chance of an acci-dent may be low, we shouldalways look to improve our regu-latory arrangements. I’m de-lighted to see this change put inplace and look forward to seeingthese historic aircraft continue tosafely operate in Australianskies,” Mr Chester said.

The Australian Warbirds As-sociation — a non-profit organis-ation that brings together aircraft

owners, operators, restorers,maintainers, historians and en-thusiasts — welcomed thechanges, which have been underconsideration since 2013.

“While this legislation hasundergone a lengthy develop-ment process, we and all otherstakeholders have been thor-oughly consulted by CASA atevery stepof the way,” AWA chiefexecutive Mark Awad said.

“We believe Part 132 will proveto have a positive impact onAustralia’s warbird community,noting that its passage is a step inthe right direction for CASA andits long-running process of regu-latory reform.

“We represent a unique groupwithin the broader general avi-ation sector, and are proud of ourcollaborative approach in work-ing withother peakbodiesand or-ganisations, CASA, the Depart-ment of Infrastructure and allother stakeholders towards astronger, more vibrant and sus-tainable industry for all.”

Part 132 will start on January28, 2017.

Transition to the new regu-lation is required by July 28, 2017.

Warbirds brought under regulatory roof EXCLUSIVE

MITCHELL BINGEMANN

‘We believePart 132 willprove to have a positive impact onAustralia’s warbirdcommunity’

MARK AWADAWA CEO

Crewperson• Bankstown Airport• Crewman• Ongoing Full-Time (1 role available)• Vacancy Ref: 00004UEIDuties: Undertake safe and effi cient operation of helicopter tasks and to ensurethat all ancillary equipment and gear necessary to perform the work programsare in operational condition and available for the jobs required. Assist the Pilotin navigation, radio, advising on obstacle clearance during landing and hoveringso safety is assured. The position is responsible for all aspects of the job otherthan flying including providing support to the Chief Pilot-Manager, FlightOperations and Pilot(s) in complying with OEH Air Operators Certifi cate,the Civil Aviation Act 1998 and associated Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA)orders and regulations.

Total Remuneration package: $93, 836 p.a. Package includes salary ($74,760 p.a – $84,652 p.a), employer’s contribution to superannuation and annual leave loading.

Applications Close:18 November 2016 (11:59 pm)If you would like to discuss this opportunity further contact Damien Hennessy on 0477 373 309.

A03

431

Applications must be lodged electronically.Please go to iworkfor.nsw.gov.au and search Job Reference Number 00004UEI

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