Alan is not in the business to help competitors. Virgin would be left high and dry at some point in the future should this get the go ahead. Regardless of how lucrative the Virgin contract is, it would be gone in a flash.
Some will remember the dialogue Alan had back in 2007 when Tiger landed. Tiger wanted ground support at regional airports and was willing to pay whatever cost, after all they service numerous other carriers also. Alan refused to offer any services to Tiger, its not part of his job description to help Tiger Airways he said. They wouldn’t even hire out a wheelchair to them, a full ban was put on any single object being lent or hired out to them. I remember passengers being lifted down stairs by crew as they didn’t want to give us the perfectly working lifting machine in front of us.
I usually fall over when he claims he welcomes competition