I would suggest Branson is using the BMI/BA deal to aportion blame for some of the future bad news.
If rumour from head office is to be believed,
Bookings are poor,
Future Bookings are terrible,
and the whole operation is being propped up by takings of deposits for Virgin galactic, as they use VS aoc at the moment.
I cannot for one minute see VS taking any of these slots for domestic use, at best I would say they may take a pair of the saudi slots, but that does not really fit the leisure market they are in.
Where is the VS business model heading with no domestic operation, or tie up with a codeshare partner, I can see them ripe for a similar situation to BMi in a few short years, not that beardy would ever let IAG get their hands on VS.