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Virgin Australia and Qantas are battling to survive along with thousands of small travel agents in Australia – but no one has had to fight harder than Webjet. Touted as the biggest travel agent in Australia and New Zealand, the online company was flying before the coronavirus arrived. As well as discounted air fares Webjet had moved into group tours in a big way. Even the stock market was

impressed – the shares were around $14 and rising. Then came the coronavirus. Staff usually flat out booking travel spent all day dealing with cancellations and refunds. Eventually the company announced a trading halt as it searched for more capital. The ASX-listed travel booking group is back trading now after completing a $231 million institutional offering at $1.70  A fully underwritten $115 million retail raising will open next week, bringing the size of the raising to $346 million. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, Webjet boss John Guscic said the company had gone from $14 million in daily sales in January to $250,000 this week, underscoring the need to recapitalise the business. “We wanted to be first out to market not the last, ensuring that in a scenario of zero revenue for the balance of calendar 2020 that we would have the opportunity of getting to the other side and still have all the strategic elements of our business that have enabled us to be successful,” he said. The shares traded today (Friday) at $2.71.

The company has deferred its first-half dividend, make 440 employees redundant, and cut CEO pay by 60 per cent, and board and executive pay by 20 per cent.  Despite all of the gloom, Guscic remains optimistic. “Global markets won’t lose their appetite for travel in the longer term and it will be a less competitive dynamic as a result of smaller players falling the wayside,” he said. “We think that we have a great capacity to compete in the new world, it’s just unclear when that starts.” This optimism is reflected in a new online advertising campaign called “Wake up your Wanderlust with Webjet”  that started today. Here are a few quotes: “Here at Webjet, we’re working around-the-clock (from home, of course) to weather this storm together. To help our customers as best we can and to look ahead to the future, to a time when we can swap quarantinis for REAL martinis (and sip them on a tropical island beach somewhere).

So when you’ve binged your hundredth Netflix episode, exhausted all of your baking ingredients, and your cats simply won’t let you take another photo of them, take some time to dream. Dream to plan your next adventure for when this all comes to an end, for when you can say goodbye to isolation and hello to your next vacation.”

Written by Ian McIntosh