The airline announced today it was officially going into voluntary administration, but the company’s executive vow it is not the end for Virgin.

After weeks of raising the alarm over the survival of the airline, Virgin Australia officially went into voluntary administration today.

It comes after reports of the company hiring insolvency experts to look at a possible restructure.

But Virgin’s CEO said it was not the end for the company.

“Our board made a very courageous decision last night to put the company into voluntary administration,” he said.

“We’ll come back leaner, stronger and fitter, and play our role in making sure that the economy of Australia – which is currently devastated by the impact of COVID-19 – recovers as quickly as it possibly can for all Australians.”

The company also put out a tweet to ease concerns of customers, saying flights would continue.

Treasurer says Virgin must look to shareholders, not the Government for a bailout

The Prime Minister and Treasurer have over the past week been asked over and over if the Government would bail Virgin out.

But Scott Morrison and Josh Frydenberg have doubled down on the Government’s position that any support would be “sector-wide”.

Mr Frydenberg said they needed to turn to shareholders – some of whom are huge foreign entities – for support.

When asked again about if the Government would reconsider its position today, Mr Frydenberg said he wanted a “market-led solution”.

“The Government was not going to bail out five large foreign shareholders with deep pockets who together own 90 per cent of this airline,” he said.

“The Government’s objective is to see two commercially viable airlines operate domestically in Australia, this will be good for jobs, this will be good for competition, this will be good for lower prices and it will be good for the Australian economy more broadly.

Deloitte announced as administrator

Deloitte, one of the biggest accounting firms in the country, was announced as the administrator of the company going forward.

Deloitte administrator Vaughan Strawbridge said there were “no plans” for mass redundancies and wages would be paid as normal.

“Around 10 potential new investors, some international, are circling a possible restructuring of Virgin,” Mr Strawbridge said.

“There has been an extraordinary amount of interest in the business and in the restructuring of Virgin Australia.

“(We will) preserve as many of those jobs as possible.”

Opposition hit out at Government’s lack of support

Labor leader Anthony Albanese said the Government needed to be doing more to protect the thousands of Australian jobs now thrown into uncertainty.

“What I want is a Prime Minister who fights for every job of every Australian and that is what the Government should be doing at this point in time,” he said.

“Anyone who’s flown with Virgin Australia knows the pride that their employees feel about their company, they know the pride that they feel about providing services to fellow Australians and they know that it is an essential industry for an island continent, separated as we are by such vast distances.”

Mr Albanese said a Government bailout should be regarded as “an investment” that would return in jobs and future economic growth.

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