Austin reid is getting ready for retirement, wouldn't a merger prove to be a nice handshake (sure beats a carriage clock). There has been talk of this merger for sometime, it would not suprise me if it happend. The India routes have indeed not been granted yet, i suspect a VS/BD codeshare on these will be the outcome.
Virgin are selling A LOT of seats on the carribean routes from MAN not as a codeshare YET, but I wouldn't be suprised if that suddenly happend, still over a month to go before the first one. Don't forget MAN/BGI was VS license first. Hmmm......
Probably good that I like the red uniform