He's making a very good point. What would be the value to Delta of almost owning one of your competitors?
Think of the difference in the cultures between Delta, a *very* particular culture, certainly before taking over NWA and Virgin Atlantic. There are no fleet synergies worth mentioning. The temptation to reduce VS to a LGW based beach fleet and allow DL to take on AA/BA with a proper sized LHR operation would be an awesome prospect in ATL. Remember some 10/38 Virgin aircraft are on leisure routes from LGW and MAN / GLA, Delta could happily keep Virgin Atlantic going as a concern, possibly flying the ten A330s on these routes. The aging B744s and remaining A340s could be rolled over as more DL capacity is added into LHR. SRB's mantra of competition is maintained as DL and BA/AA are very much competitors in the same markets.
It's like BMI Baby. Why buy it to run it when you could do it better yourself, except in this case you need to buy it for the slots. Virgin have ~ 22 daily departures out of LHR, very tempting but not overwhelming for any operation to take over and run.
Tempting options would be replacing Virgin capacity to EWR and JFK to give a properly competitve offering on the very lucrative LHR-JFK, up against, again, AA/BA.
Good to see someone agreeing on one of my suggestions:
Firstly however, the leisure fleet will consist of a dozen 747-400s once they are refurbished, the LHR will consist of the remaining 747s, A340s and A330s
If DL is going to buy VS (rather than AA), then the only way to make this work is take control and spilt the airline into 2 (Delta UK and Virgin Atlantic)
Delta UK would consist of the “old” VS’s LHR operations/slots/routes, the A330-300s, the A340-600s and the non-leisure 747-400s, it would be 51% owned by Air France-KLM (though letting DL manage things) and 49% owned by Delta
Delta UK's assets and staff will gradually be folded into Delta itself until its becomes an asset-less shell, when that happens Delta UK will shut down and its AOC handed back
The “new” Virgin Atlantic would consist of the leisure 747-400s and the LGW/MAN operations/slots/routes, it would be 51% owned by Virgin Holidays and 49% by Delta UK (which would later be transfered to Delta)
Seems Mr Walsh has touched a nerve! SRB wants to "bet a million pounds".
That sounds worrying desperate! He needs to rise above that sort of thing as ut sounds as though the good night doth protest too much. It's getting wierd......
Why can’t SRB see that BA is not the airline of the era of dirty tricks?
Why can’t he see that BA are by far the best partners for VS?
Why can’t he see the real enemy is not within the UK, but in Europe and the Middle East, along with the North Atlantic?
If he does not like BA competing with VS, then buy the airline of IAG (who could use the money to fix IB, along with preventing BA from being dragged down by the problems at IB)
Some possible reasons why Delta/AF-KLM might want to keep the VAA brand rather than just use slots (suppositions not facts):
- Brand loyalty - if brand ditched no guarantee pax will stay with Delta
- Higher yields route for route than Delta - use Delta leverage to reduce costs and therefore make VAA profitable
- Route rights to the East from LHR
- Airlines evolving into multi-brands like hotels - VAA brand could be rolled out elsewhere targetted at specifc demographic
- No deal with SRB without brand retention for at least five years (as per article)
Any others?
The problem with VS is that it just cannot compete with BA, LH, EK, and QR, it fix it will cost even more money and then it would end up becoming a battle of the fittest between the Franco-American VS and BA, whoever wins both airlines would take on massive losses and frankly I doubt if DL or AF-KL can even afford it this, DL might but it would get little out of all of this, unlike buying AA…
The only reason airlines use several brands is that either they want to differentiate between their full-service and LCC ops (Qantas-Jetstar) or due to limitations such as bilaterals (Lufthansa-Swiss International-Austrian Airlines-Brussels Airlines) or in the case of Taiwan, political issues
Delta does to have to face any of those issues, it gave up on its LCC for a start (Song) and its base of operations is within one country, if they were interested in operating under different brand name then it would still be using the “Northwest Airlines” and “Pan American” brands
DL could use the VS brand east of LHR; trouble is that they already operate East of Europe under their own brand (AMS-BOM)
Somewhat lost in all the hoohaa, but Virgin have actually handed 3 of the remedy slot pairs back to BA.
The 3 MAN rotations are timetabled using existing Virgin slots that were leased out to other carriers.
6 EDI and 3 ABZ means 3 slots not taken up.
Now, i know they had to use them on limited routes and they didn't get Moscow rights and Cairo is f****d right now, Riyadh is not a good place to send an aircraft with Virgin emblazoned on it etc etc, but yet another example of a half hearted, half arsed effort from Virgin.
Gifted precious slots on a plate and hand a quarter of them back to the competition
Can’t they use those 3 slots to make LHR-MAN 6 X Daily?
Certainly help compete with BA’s 8 X Daily Service in terms of long haul connections
Or maybe launch LHR-GLA (if they so desperate to weaken the BA “monopoly” then you cannot find many better routes than that one)
Also is it not the case that VS is appealing the Moscow rights decision?
As for Riyadh, maybe they could paint a burka over the mascot and call themselves “Charisma Airlines” (after the record label that was bought by Virgin) in a similar way to Air Sinai, KLM Asia etc 
Basilbrush - true to an extent. But if nobody else comes forward, back to BA the slots go. Now that another Carrier (Virgin) is starting Scottish to LHR, do you seriously think a third airline will come forward?
Moscow has been divvied our rights wise so can't see owt happening there.
Cairo is a basket case in waiting
Air France from Nice?........
I don't know about the rights on Riyadh, but unless Saudia are allowed more flights to UK, then thats a no go as well.
I'm pretty confident Virgin have just gifted these slots back to BA
If DL/AF/KL take over the airline, I doubt if those domestic flights will last since they conflict with the their hubs at CDG/AMS, hence making those flights redundant
Also is it not the case that VS is appealing the Moscow rights decision?
What does that UK-Saudi Bilateral sat about UK-Saudi Arabia rights?
Ain't that the truth! I do not travel so much these days but VS are still my preferred long haul carrier and if they went, I would have to reconsider all other carriers before choosing. However, I am not a typical pax as I am extremely picky about carrier and the specific aircraft and I willingly pay more to get my choice.
Having never travelled on Delta, I know little about them but one can say that there is no buzz of 'difference' or 'special' such as one hears about, say, Singapore or some of the new Middle East carriers.
I have travelled on United, North West (as they were) Eastern (as they were) and Continental (before Bethune and before it's sale) and recall most of the trips as being unmemorable and some downright horrible. One long haul on United in Y ensured that I did not repeat the mistake.
I have very deliberately never crossed the Pond on anything other than BA or VS and cannot imagine me deciding that Delta was the way to go without a lot of people I know telling me it was worth my money. Oh, and a Team with several carriers that are on my personal no-fly list?
Delta are considered the “better” of the US carriers, which is not saying much…
Best Airlines in the world: Cathay Pacific Singapore Airlines and Emirates (in my opinion anyway)
Although BA, VS, TK and are few others are fairly good…
The remedy slots were for EDI, ABZ, MOW, CAI, RUH and NCE, and 7 of them were limited to EDI/ABZ. No remedy slots to MAN were available so VS would have had to use their own slots for MAN anyway.
So if VS had taken on the 3 additional slots you think they should have taken, they would have had to either start CAI/RUH/NCE or else increase frequency on EDI or ABZ beyond the existing levels (i.e. an additional aircraft). What do you suggest they should have done with these "slots on a plate"?
If you read the actual Commitments (link in my 10 Dec post above), you'll see (section 1.1.3 on p.173) that if VS operates EDI and ABZ for a year, it's entitled to apply for the remaining slots and use them for any European short-haul route. That seems a pretty reasonable deal to me.
If you want to have a pop at VS, fine, be my guest 
, but maybe best to at least do so based on facts?
If DL/AF/KL is still interested in VS Domestic flights then either more LHR-MAN flights or launch LHR-GLA would not be such a bad idea
Of course there are better things they can do, but they would not like it…
Virgin Atlantic brand would be consigned to the history books if US giant Delta buys a 49pc stake
He suggested a £1m wager would not be fair as Sir Richard is a “billionaire banker”.
“I don’t think a million pounds would hurt him, I don’t have a million pounds so maybe a bet that would be as painful to him as it might be to me – so maybe something like a knee in the groin,” Mr Walsh said.
The IAG chief said he didn’t know Sir Richard very well but “on the limited occasions” he had met him he hasn’t seen anything that would “make me want to meet him again”.
Does this make WW second on SRB’s “list of people I hate” list?
If Delta want to make the investment work, then WW might be right...
DL have just shot themselves in the foot by doing this, certainly I have little hope for this deal considering the terms, its LH-BD all over again…
On this time DL cannot sustain the losses due to the state of the US aviation market, unlike LH
And this is coming from someone who suggests that they should buy an airline which is currently in BK
Does Virgin Atlantic have any marketing deals with Virgin America? If so, how are these affected by this deal?
Maybe DL could pick up their A319/A320 when VA meets its sad end…