Virgin Australia’s strategy to put the pandemic in the past

Virgin Australia workers are being offered a day of counselling to help them move on from the Covid pandemic.

Virgin Australia CEO Jayne Hrdlicka at The Australian’s Strategic Business Forum lunch. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen

Virgin Australia chief executive Jayne Hrdlicka says the airline is helping workers to move on from the Covid-19 pandemic by providing a day of counselling to “say goodbye to the past”.

Speaking at The Australian’s Strategic Business Forum in Brisbane on Thursday, Ms Hrdlicka said Virgin was fortunate in that it was not suffering the same difficulty attracting skilled workers as many other companies.

But she said there were challenges in getting over the pandemic and the impact of the health crisis on people’s professional and personal lives.

“For us we’ve kind of drawn a line in the sand to say ‘let’s stop talking about all the things we’ve been through’ because it’s been pretty challenging in aviation over the last couple of years,” Ms Hrdlicka said.

“We’re new world now … so we’re investing in every single person in the company having a day in a session to get over the trauma, to say goodbye to the past, and hello to the future.”

She said all of Virgin Australia’s cabin crew would go through their pandemic debrief before the busy Christmas season started, to help focus on the job at hand. “It’s recognising the importance of bringing everybody together in the journey to get over the pandemic and the consequences of the pandemic on their individual lives,” said Ms Hrdlicka.

“How they think about the world now is a key part of our job in training and upskilling because we’ve got to get over what happened to us.”

One of the biggest changes for the company post-Covid was the recognition that the workforce had undergone a fundamental change, she said.

In response, companies needed to adapt to new ways of working and changed expectations particularly from the next generation of workers.

Virgin CEO Jayne Hrdlicka was a panellist at The Australian’s Strategic Business Forum in Brisbane. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen/The Australian

“There’s no one-size-fits-all with respect to our people and we have to adjust and adapt to make sure we stay relevant,” Ms Hrdlicka said.

“We have got to recognise people are continually changing, particularly this next generation coming through. They’ve had a really tough couple of years, so how do we get them into the jobs they’re excited about and want to stick to and evolve through.” As Virgin Australia waved goodbye to the pandemic, flights would ramp up to close to pre-pandemic levels by Christmas in response to strong demand, she said.

Despite fears of a global recession quickly ending the travel recovery, Ms Hrdlicka was confident the strong uptake of airline seats would continue.

“The one clear thing that has happened through multiple tough times economically is that people will ensure they’ve got a budget to experience life and I think that’s doubly the case off the back of Covid, where we were denied life experience,” she said.

“We’re not seeing anything that would suggest people are going to decide to stay at home more, just the opposite in fact.

“Flights are full, demand is high, everybody is trying to fly internationally, and it’s very difficult to get a seat out of Australia or back in.”

She recognised the importance of increasing flight frequencies over the summer holiday season and said Virgin was working to increase capacity. “We want to ensure Australians can do whatever they want over the holiday season, that there’s plenty of opportunity to get a flight to the destination of their choice,” she added.

Originally published as Virgin Australia’s strategy to put the pandemic in the past