Craig Kreeger to retire from Virgin Atlantic

Virgin has just announced that Craig Kreeger is to retire as CEO of Virgin Atlantic on 1 January 2019. Craig will be replaced by Shai Weiss, currently Chief Commercial Officer.

https://www.ttgmedia.com/news/shai-weis ... tive-14573

Not sure what to make of Kreeger's departure, but nice to see VS promoting someone from within the company who is already invested in the airline.

It is a return to recruiting from within. Craig was obviously brought in from American Airlines because he was actively involved in setting up their transatlantic joint-venture with BA.

The cynic in me wonders whether this is a demotion of the role of CEO pending moves by Delta when SRB sells part of his stake to AFKLM.

I'm more interested in the 'velocity' plan that gets a mention.

Shai is from the Virgin side isn’t he? A big coup for SRB I would of thought in a board increasingly dominated by DL and it’s worldwide partners. Maybe CK decided having seen in DL it was time to hand over the reins. Shai was previously finance director as well. Wonder who they’ll fill the CCO with...

Does anyone know what the Velocity Plan is? Tried to search and couldn't find anything. Are they about to be leaned or something similar?

[mitchja]

I just read it as Velocity simply being the project name for the AF/KLM JV, from the article:

The reshuffle comes as the airline prepares to put into place its new mid-range corporate plan, Velocity, in the New Year, an expanded joint venture partnership with Delta and Air France-KLM.

Velocity is the internal name for our next 3 year plan, the current 3 year plan is called Plan to win.

The KLM/AF JV will obviously play a big part in Velocity.

Plan to win was a bit of a failure really. I remember when it was launched 5 years ago and they were supposed to be making 230m profit a year or something by 2018. I don't think Kreeger will be remembered for much. He will leaving the airline after 2 years of losses by that point instead of the huge profits he promised.

I beg to differ Plan to win has definitely helped the airline, I’ve worked for Virgin for 20 years and I’ve never felt more secure in my job than I have the last few years.

Some components of plan to win have been harsh and unpopular but it’s helped the airline become much more resilient.

A lot of things have happened that were not predicted hence the losses. Personally I think Craig has done a good job. Much better than Mr Ridgeway and Ms Southern.

Out of curiosity Silverwings do you work for VS?

I'm not sure what it is anyone could have done any better than Craig Kreeger.

Some of the changes he made such rationalising Head Office roles and changing long-standing supplier relationships suggest Virgin had lost its way a bit under Steve Ridgway.

Arguably, the biggest mistake was SRB not accepting that the American/BA joint-venture was an inevitability after EU-US Open Skies and responding to it sooner, rather than protesting against it.

Its questionable whether bmi & VS could ever have been a success, but a combination of bmi merging into BA and the revenue/cost synergies from IAG has resulted in very different trajectories for BA and VS. And I don't see what can be done about it now.

[mitchja]

From what I can see, I also think Craig Kreeger has done a good job streamlining VS and moving them in their current direction.

I agree that he's done a good job. As people say, it seems the airline has gone back to basics and doing them pretty well. Selling slots to help finance the 787s was a bold move that I'm sure few airline CEOs would take! Going forward I see some key challenges for Virgin over the next few years which I hope are addressed in the Velocity plan;

1) Limited route network. Now that the Atlantic has well and truly been put back into Virgin Atlantic, the number of non-US routes has shrunk to just a handful. This will inevitably impact the potential for larger corporate contracts, especially with the seeming decline in FlyingCo. I'm not convinced the KLM/AF tie-in will fix that
2) Out of date UC seats. However much I love flying UC if I'm honest the seat doesn't compare to business class from Cathay, Qatar and even American! I think Craig really missed a golden opportunity to update the seating with the introduction of the 787. I know many people who won't fly Virgin as they hate the sky 'coffins'. However I think the EC and PE seats are very good compared to the competition, on most aircraft
3) Bringing back the Love for frequent fliers. If you fly UC there's very little benefit to flying club, now that the number of miles to redeem an UC seat has gone ridiculous in some cases. Also the devaluation was supposed to open up much more inventory. I've not seen any evidence of that. That's why I maintain my BA Gold card - not because BA is particularly good, but because I can access a great range of One World services / lounges when flying non-VS routes.

The very best of luck to Shai!

Plan to win was a bit of a failure really. I remember when it was launched 5 years ago and they were supposed to be making 230m profit a year or something by 2018. I don't think Kreeger will be remembered for much. He will leaving the airline after 2 years of losses by that point instead of the huge profits he promised.

To be fair, I don't think factors such as Brexit along with the associated depreciation of GBP vs USD or the continued rise/threat of Norwegian out of LGW could have been forecasted when Kreeger first took on the role.

From where I'm sitting (bearing in mind I don't work for VS), I think Kreeger has done a decent job at turning round an airline that needed some reform. The decisions to axe certain routes would no doubt have upset some, but if it made things more profitable then so be it. Maybe VS will return to those markets some day, but I agree with the immediate need to focus on the markets that are profitable and to explore untapped opportunities such as MAN expansion.

There's still a long way to go and the airline needs to be profitable every year, but it seems to me it's heading in the right direction. It'll be interesting to see what comes out of the JV with Air France-KLM.