[Anonymous]

[Bucksnet]

http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/…usiness/Industry/article847157.ece

It appears that Virgin Atlantic is to be split from Virgin Holidays, and will join Skyteam along with shareholder Singapore Airlines.

If true then both of them moving to T4 has got to be a dead cert.

[VintageKrug]

How we laughed.

Quick, Pigs Flying at 10 o’clock!

[Hippocampus]

I don’t think a decision by Virgin Atlantic to join SkyTeam would prompt Singapore Airlines to defect from Star Alliance.

Also, bearing in mind the lead time to join an alliance is at least 18 months, Virgin really is dragging its feet.

[Bullfrog]

‘more pie in the sky’ .. For a minute I thought it was April 1st already.

[Hippocampus]

To be fair, it is no secret that Virgin has been looking for potential equity investors in the airline. The Heathrow and Gatwick businesses are likely to attract different interests, so a separation of the two (with, say the Gatwick rebranded as “Virgin Holidays”) is not at all implausible.

[MartynSinclair]

I just wish VS would join somebody so I can at least use my air miles.

Impossible to use on any of the “Partner” airline besides VS.

[LuganoPirate]

Of course Old Beardie would like an equity investor. He wants some cash to pay for Northern Rock!

Singapore airlines would also love to be rid and I believe VS is in their balance sheet at a nominal sum. The big problem is where does VS fit within any alliance. They offer nothing the others don’t already have in terms of routes and the real value of the brand has to be questioned in today’s environment.

This is just a perception, but when it comes to trust I trust more BA, LX etc than I do VS and in some ways VS is just a UK carrier despite operations is Nigeria and Australia. The trouble is these operations don’t really feed VS’s international network and this is why Branson should have gone for BMI to feed high revenue pax into his International ops.

At that point he would have been a credible threat to BA and worth buying out. It was a mistake not to put up the cash, but then he probably thought he could arm twist the Germans like he does the British. Of course if he didn’t have the cash to do it then it’s another matter?

He’ll most likely spilt the ops. Makes sense after all, but as to a buyer or joining an alliance, this I highly doubt, as I doubt if VS will still be flying in 5 years time!

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