Virgin Australia ceo Jayne Hrdlicka has told an Australian Government Senate inquiry that the airline's (and by association the Australian aviation industry) will need further assistance to recover from the Covid-19 pandemic.

After thanking Federal and State governments for the assistance given to date, she told the meeting that the JobKeeper (employee payments) scheme "has meant we have been able ... to retain thousands and thousands of skilled jobs that would otherwise not have been possible and to protect the integrity and resilience of our operations in an environment where the pandemic and border closures have caused demand to be highly variable, with no ability to plan and predict what tomorrow will bring”.

 

JobKeeper is however being wound down, with the program due to close within months.