In 2014, Virgin sold a 35 per cent stake in its loyalty business to private equity firm Affinity Equity Partners in an effort to cut costs by $1 billion, after it recorded yet another annual loss. Just five years later, then-chief executive Paul Scurrah made it his mission to get Velocity back in-house. He believed that one way or another, it would secure the fate of the broader, struggling business.

Just months later, COVID-19 shocked the aviation sector to its core, and the $700 million of debt raised to re-acquire the stake in Velocity from private equity investors proved to be Virgin’s last straw.