Virgin Australia Holdings Ltd owes A$6.9 billion ($4.39 billion) to more than 10,000 creditors based on an initial review and will seek a three-month payment waiver from aircraft lessors, its administrators said. Virgin said this week it succumbed to third-party led restructuring that could lead to a sale, turning Australia’s second-biggest airline into the Asia-Pacific’s biggest victim of the coronavirus crisis.
The figure owed to creditors includes about A$2.3 billion of secured debt, A$2 billion of unsecured bonds, A$1.9 billion of aircraft leases, A$450 million owed to employees, A$167 million to trade creditors and A$71 million to landlords, according to an affidavit from administrator Vaughan Strawbridge. The bankrupt airline’s administrators are liable to pay leases on its aircraft starting April 28, because they will not inform lessors whether they would renege on leases within five business days, as required by law, the documents, posted on the website of Strawbridge’s firm Deloitte, showed.
