Originally Posted by
JSCL
So you are suggesting because CDG, AMS and FRA exist - tring to compete on routes shouldn't happen? if that were the case. BA would be down the swanny. BA already competes on a lot of the routes also available from those three other EU hubs, no reason a VS/BD tie up can't compete also.
BA is an established competitor in the markets you mention. For e.g. Central/Eastern Europe to North America, BA, AF/KL and LH (including LX/OS) are already competing, as are (to a lesser extent) SAS, LOT, Air Baltic, and CSA.
A VS/BD tie-up would be starting from scratch with zero sales presence in those Central/Eastern European markets and an array of competitors more than happy to make life hard for them. Plus - as I've said before - to get reasonable connections to/from VS long-haul, you need 2, probably 3 flights a day on the short-haul network. That's a lot of capacity to suddenly throw into secondary markets.
You assert that
Virgin has its on financial muscle behind it
. My impression is that Virgin has always been adept at lining up Other People's Money, and I suggest that most non-airline investors would be likely to look at a Virgin/bmi scenario and say "not for us, can't see a way to make it work." Running at a loss for a couple of years in order to establish a sustainable profitable position is fine; getting into a bleeding contest with a number of large blood banks (to paraphrase the old analogy) seems less smart to me.