Virgin Australia has become the largest airline to fail amid the novel coronavirus pandemic that is driving the worst crisis ever faced by global airlines.
The Brisbane-based carrier entered “voluntary administration” — the Australian equivalent of bankruptcy restructuring — on April 21, Virgin Australia said in a statement. The process will allow the airline to restructure and seek outside investment after its current shareholders and the Australian government declined to provide aid.
Virgin Australia will continue to operate its already greatly reduced schedule in Australia and internationally. The airline is operating 64 domestic flights daily, including to Brisbane (BNE), Melbourne (MEL) and Sydney (SYD), as well as limited international service to Hong Kong (HKG) and Los Angeles (LAX).
The airline’s Velocity frequent flyer program is not part of the administration process.
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“Our intention is to undertake a process to restructure and re-finance the business and bring it out of administration as soon as possible,” said Vaughan Strawbridge, one of Virgin Australia’s administrators and a partner at Deloitte, in a statement. “We have…