Quote: “The decision was nothing to do with the train franchise as it was being worked on for some months before the announcement of the loss of the train franchise. It was sparked off by the fact bmi was taken over by BA and there would be no competition on LHR - MAN anymore. And Branson always likes the opportunity to take a pop at BA”
Quote: “I think the last minute hokey cokey all over this suggests it became a priority when Virgin lost the trains franchise. They are clearly not unrelated, the left hand ought to have some idea what the right hand is doing.”
Probably linked to the fact that VS had leased out 3 slots pairs but has to use them to be eligible for the ABZ/EDI that BA has to lose, hence 3 daily LHR-MAN.
GLA next?
This was probably devised from the time that BA took over BD, and so pre-dates the event where Virgin Trains lost the franchise.
VS and Virgin Trains are also completely different organisations
Quote: “l was speaking to a senior guy in Air Canada at LHR who said they had approached VS regarding a domestic link to Manchester from Heathrow as soon as knew they would loose the Star Alliance link with BMI to connect with their flights in LHR. Apparently they estimate that 200+ pax per day from MAN connect in Heathrow on AC flights to Canada, and they wanted an alterative to British Airways MAN/LHR.“
Does this put VS one step closer to joining the Star Alliance?