compton - yes, there would be some more Skyteam aligned LHR slots, but for Skyteam to make effective use of those slots would to some extent mean Virgin killing off some of their existing tried-and-tested routes in favour of routes to Skyteam-aligned destinations. As an example, how does a Heathrow-San Francisco or Heathrow-Dubai route really benefit Skyteam, when Pairis-CDG and Amsterdam both already have excellent local feed from all over Europe as well as plentiful long haul flights ?
Furthermore, if Delta wants access to some LHR slots, would they really need to spend the money on a 49% equity stake in VS and not have majority control of the company or (combined with AF-KL) buy a 51% stake in VS ? A major equity stake seems an awfully expensive way of accessing a handful of Skyteam-friendly slots at one airport - the risk of overpaying comes to mind.
I believe that Singapore Airlines have already written down the equity stake in VS in their accounts to zero - so they have already taken the accounting pain. Assuming SQ intend to remain within Star Alliance, SQ will want to make things as expensive as possible for Skyteam to gain a significant increase in LHR slots, extracting as much cash as they possibly can out of Delta.
I'm not saying that Delta taking a 49% (or more) stake in Virgin would be a bad thing - I just haven't seen a convincing agrument yet and hope someone can persuade me as to the merits of such a deal.
toledoashley - why would AF-KL choose to operate flights outside the UK to/from Heathrow in Virgin branding and pay a royalty fee to Beardy and make use of existing valuable slots used for CDG/AMS services, when AF-KL can instead take those same passengers to Paris/Amsterdam in their own branding on existing services and not have to worry about leaking customers to another airline ?
Last edited by davidjohnson6; 2nd Dec 2012 at 20:50.