Virgin Atlantic

[rog747]

MAN-LGW

EZYJET have picked up this route haven't they?

[BALHR]

France has Corsair, Spain has Air Europa, both of which do longhaul and domestic, so are similar to Virgin (or how it will be from March 2013). So not the case that they can only sustain one full-service carrier each.

Corsair is part of TUI (A Travel Agent), it is mainly a charter carrier and the scheduled destinations are tourist oriented, so I would not count it as a “Full-Service” Carrier, Also they do not serve any domestic routes, they only serve Africa and North America

Air Europa is makes a better case for being a full-service carrier however, but it’s still operarates fair number of charter routes, I would compare then to Monarch and Air Berlin

So my case still stands that France and Spain can only sustain 1 full-service carrier

Why can the UK not sustain 2 major full-service carriers?

Because times have changed since VS was formed in the 80s, the market has been deregulated and hence BA has to now compete with LCCs, carriers in mainland Europe and now Gulf Airlines, they puts a lot of preassure on margins, what maks the problem worse is that there is a lack of space to lanuch new routes from LHR, hence it is not a good idea for VS to keep operating services on routes that alresdy have competition already

VS also has a porblem with the fact it does to have enough slots to have a route network that is big enough to make it a viable alternative to BA

[ryansf]

Apologies if this has been reported already but it would seem Avion Express will be operating 3 A320s on VS' behalf for their ABZ, EDI and MAN schedules.

The newest of which, according to their own website, is 17 years old!! The oldest being 21. One to avoid I think...

[BALHR]

British Airways - I am in awe of you! 21 years old and you know sooooo much! You're obviously destined for politics or journalism.
Promise me you won't lower yourself and join us mere mortals in the flight deck of an aeroplane as I'm not sure I could cope with the enthralling, not to mention opinionated, conversation!

Have you been studying hard at your university or old style local poly and been fed all this stuff by an expert lecturer? Let me guess - an economics student with a PPL or a Air Transport and Management course?

I have based the information on my post on several years of research and this is my opinion alone, I am not suggesting that what you are suggesting is pointless, I am just stating that I disagree

British Airways - I admire your sentiment and certainly your enthusiasm however the only way that BA will absorb VS (Not the other way round) is if VS goes belly up.

VS will no doubt fight tooth and nail to remain independant however it's likely that it will join an alliance at some stage in the future - it's the way aviation is heading. Reason why they haven't joined one thus far is more than likely due to the points I've raised.

I would agree with that, but surely you would also agree that unless they change their insistance that they should retain their independence, they face a losing battle to compete with their rivals

1,915 words of utter tosh mate! What ARE you on about? This statement above, shows the level of your commercial know how. They compete because they have to, they compete where the market will allow. To suggest VS go away and make profits on all those pretendy routes that can make money that BA one assumes just didn't know were there, that's naive bordering in stupid. It really is, let's not beat about the bush.

What VS is doing is not sustainable for the long term, there is a lack of space at our airports, the UK needs to launch routes to emerging markets (like South America for example) and there has been incresing competition in the past 20 years for both BA and VS, BA cannot operate new routes to those markets because there is a lack of space at LHR, hopefully that will be fixed now they have bought BMI, but the problem for VS is that because they failed to buy BMI, they have fallen further behind BA in relation to route network

What? Where's BA gone? Vanished in a puff of whatever you're smoking? You do know good old friendly STAR partner Singapore already owns 49% of VS? How's that investment worked out? Well? No, they've been trying to sell it.

In that option VS has bought BA with the financial help of *A, who would gain from the fact they have a friendly partner at LHR, the reason Singapore Airlines wants out is because they see what SRB cannot see, VS model is not sustainable in the long run in its current form

Wrong, they're replacing A340-600s, several having left the fleet already.

Some A340-600s are being withdrawn, but the entire fleet of A340-300s is being withdrawn and will so by next year, the reason why VS has ordered A330-300s is that the 787-9s they ordered have been delayed several times over

The remaining A340-600s are to be replaced (along with the 747-400s) wth another aircraft

Virgin closing on selection of 747-400 and A340-600 replacement

Not so much domestically, it's the same as having TG and SQ in STAR, they still hate each other.

Despite the fact they have a pretty extensive coadshare agreement and almost merged at least twice (the second time they found a even better partner in the form of CO)

I would describe it more as a love-hate relationship

Nonsense, UA are struggling to manage the CO intergration, a behemouth the size of a combined AA-UA/CO would be frightening prospect for competition. That thing you don't seem to get around which is front and centre of why a lot of what you are writing about has to remain a fantasy.

Firstly I have shown in detail that it is not the case (are you sure you have read what I have wrote on the matter?), they combined domestic share would be barely higher than Southwest/AirTran's domesitc share and the only hubs they have in common and pretty fragmented markets and would remain so even after a UA-AA merger

If you disagree with my detailed statements on the matter, would you mind explaining it in detail?

It wasn't done for "reasons of fairness", BA launched Deutsche BA to try and hold market share when LH got Berlin access but the market chose Lufthansa.

I agree on the reasons why BA gave up on DBA, but the reason they had to do it was that the Germans (this was just before deregulation) felt British/French/American airlines has traffic rights within Germany, they German airlines where deinied at the time

The same reason was why Pan Am was forced to sell their German traffic rights to LH (and well as the fact they where financialy desperate)

[Skipness One Echo]

This is the Virgin Atlantic Thread not the "British Airways" one

I have based the information on my post on several years of research

We really want you to expand on this one.

If you disagree with my detailed statements on the matter, would you mind explaining it in detail?

No, I'll let someone else have a go, you're living in a dream world, your detailed statements do not reflect the commercial and competitve reality. In short, you don't know the difference between apples and pears in a marketplace.

Anyhoo we can't allow "British Airways" to hijack the Virgin thread, think of spin they'd put on that one!

So in other news, I understand the three leisure A330s will be getting a LHR layout but still flying from LGW. The last A330 is due back from China Airlines imminently bringing the fleet up to full strength at ten, alongside eight refitted B744s on the beach fleet which really ought to see those Skytrax reviews getting better.

[GlasgowBoy]

Virgin will never acquire BA. Regardless of who's funding it, it will NEVER pass the regulatory hurdles. Ditto for United buying American!

Enjoyed the Virgin-BA-United-American discussion however - made me laugh!

So in other news, I understand the three leisure A330s will be getting a LHR layout but still flying from LGW. The last A330 is due back from China Airlines imminently bringing the fleet up to full strength at ten, alongside eight refitted B744s on the beach fleet which really ought to see those Skytrax reviews getting better.

Does anyone know if this will affect their GLA-MCO route? Going by the VS website, it's showing as A333 with the 744 during the peak school holiday periods. As was the case last year.

So if VSXY/VINE/VKSS will be refitted to a 3-class config, does this mean that GLA will see only 744 service to MCO? Obviously, the only time the route has been 3-class is when the 744s have operated. It's a massive jump to go from Zero J one year, to 33J the next.

Apparently VS have been impressed with how their S13 GLA programme has sold thus far, so I wonder if we'll see the 744 for the full duration of the summer programme. Here's hoping!

[Fairdealfrank]

Quote: "Corsair is part of TUI (A Travel Agent), it is mainly a charter carrier and the scheduled destinations are tourist oriented, so I would not count it as a “Full-Service” Carrier, Also they do not serve any domestic routes, they only serve Africa and North America

Air Europa is makes a better case for being a full-service carrier however, but it’s still operarates fair number of charter routes, I would compare then to Monarch and Air Berlin

So my case still stands that France and Spain can only sustain 1 full-service carrier"

So they do charter work, so what! Many carriers do, including full service ones. It can be a nice little earner. Don't know about VS, but BA do, and BD did, charter work.

SS, like VS, isn't in an alliance, UX is in Skyteam.

The case is not made: France and Spain can and do sustain more than one full-service carrier each.

Quote: "Because times have changed since VS was formed in the 80s, the market has been deregulated and hence BA has to now compete with LCCs, carriers in mainland Europe and now Gulf Airlines, they puts a lot of preassure on margins, what maks the problem worse is that there is a lack of space to lanuch new routes from LHR, hence it is not a good idea for VS to keep operating services on routes that alresdy have competition already"

Fascinating stuff, but not an answer to the question: why can the UK not sustain two full-service carriers.

The UK had three full service carriers till recently - and that's just those at LHR!

Now it has two (probably because of some bizarre management decisions at BD) and this is likely to continue.

But what about those not based at LHR, BE and T3 for example, don't they count just because they're "regional"?


Don't suppose there's any danger of you answering the other questions in post #618 properly.....

[crewmeal]

Virgin Atlantic to lease Avion Express aircraft for short-haul routes? - Business Traveller

I sincerely hope that if Virgin take on this wet lease(s) the interiors will be upgraded and not left in the state they were offered to Monarch during the summer.

[BALHR]

No, I'll let someone else have a go, you're living in a dream world, your detailed statements do not reflect the commercial and competitve reality. In short, you don't know the difference between apples and pears in a marketplace.

Ditto for United buying American

Hold on, you still have not explained (as well as other posters) why UA-AA would a "frightening prospect for competition" despite the fact that (as I have shown) that it would not be the case

Here is the statement (again) stating why I am saying my point about this:

Firstly UA has little presense in the South-East of America, they also have a problem in relation to routes to Latin America and they could do with more slots at LHR

AAs biggest problem is that they are lacking in the Pacific and the face they (and UA) are having to deal with a fragmented makrets in Chicago, LA and NYC

So if UA and AA merged, those problems would be solved, UA would gain AAs MIA hub, which is pretty profitable and serves emerging markets in Latin-America, AA also has a lot of slots/routes at LHR, which would be very useful to UA and UA-AA would be able to consolodate the fragmented markets in NYC, LA and Chicago. UA would also gain AA's profitable hub at DFW

Lastly, their fleets are fairly similar, both are more or less the same age and both are a lot of fleet types (A320, 737, 757, 767, 777)

As for anti-Trust, well it would be only be a small problem, which I would break it down:

Lets look at the domestic market, if AA and UA merged the combined airline would only hold 27.1% of the US Domestic Market, hardly a monopoly, remember Southwest/Air Tran hold 26% and Delta nearly 19%

AA and UA share only 3 hubs, they are LAX, ORD and NYC (in this case JFK and EWR), UA-AA would hold 40% of the NYC markets (All Airports in NYC) and LAX (not counting other airports in LA area), so it means that both markets will still have a lot of competition

ORD would become a fortress hub like UAs hubs in EWR and IAH and AAs hub in MIA and DFW, in the case of ORD, it will face strong competion from Chicago's other main airport MDW in the form of Southwest (who hold a near 90% market share at that airport)

As for International routes, Trans Pacific and Trans Atlantic routes would still face a lot of competition from Delta and its partners in ST or in the case of US-Africa fall behind them

So really the competition issues are not enough prevent a UA-AA merger

If you (or others) still think there are competition issues with a AA-UA merger after reading this, then I am more than happy to hear it (along with anything you or others disagree who disagree with my statement

Virgin will never acquire BA. Regardless of who's funding it, it will NEVER pass the regulatory hurdles.

All the routes that both BA and VS compete on also have competition from at least 1 other airline (bar LHR-ACC and that is only because Ghana International went bust), my first option however would prevent VS and BA competing on the same routes (which would go around that competition issue)

Also a combined BA/VS/OW would hold still hold a smaller proportion of slots then lets say AF/KL/ST at AMS and CDG and LH/*A at FRA and MUC

So they do charter work, so what! Many carriers do, including full service ones. It can be a nice little earner. Don't know about VS, but BA do, and BD did, charter work.

SS, like VS, isn't in an alliance, UIX is in Skyteam.

The case is not made: France and Spain can and do sustain more than one full-service carrier each.

My point is that Corsair's main business (unlike BA/VS/AF for example) is charter and full-service scheduled flights are basicly "on the side" in other worlds it is like French equivalent of Thomson, Air Europa business puts charter and scheduled on equal terms, so it is a "hybrid carrier" like Monarch (which like UIX is owned by a travel operator)

BA and VS charter work is "on the side" its main business is still operating full-service scheduled flights (although VS has close ties with travel operator Virgin Holidays)

So my case stands that pretty much none of Europe's nations can sustain any more than 1 full-service carrier, apart from Germany (due to the cold war) and Britain

[Blighty Pilot]

Can anyone else sense a Captain Thrush amongst the ranks?

[Cyber Bob]

British Airways has adopted the 'Andy Gray style of commentary' - keep talking and all being well, some if it may make sense!.

Keep at it fella

CB

[Fairdealfrank]

Quote: "My point is that Corsair's main business (unlike BA/VS/AF for example) is charter and full-service scheduled flights are basicly "on the side" in other worlds it is like French equivalent of Thomson, Air Europa business puts charter and scheduled on equal terms, so it is a "hybrid carrier" like Monarch (which like UIX is owned by a travel operator)

BA and VS charter work is "on the side" its main business is still operating full-service scheduled flights (although VS has close ties with travel operator Virgin Holidays)

Oh dear, that's just splitting hairs. Sounds like a lost argument.

Quote: "So my case stands that pretty much none of Europe's nations can sustain any more than 1 full-service carrier, apart from Germany (due to the cold war) and Britain"


You appear to have all the answers (not necessarily all correct of course!), so perhaps you would like to enlighten the rest of us why you believe that only the UK and Germany in Europe can sustain more than one full service carrier.

[EI-BUD]

Any official word on what airline will operate UK domestics for Virgin?

Also are there rules that dictate the airlines must detail at the time of the booking who will operatet the flight? BA (where they know in advance) state on the booking who will operate the flight, e.g. if it were Titan etc.

No references to the carrier on Virgin booking, only states 319.

EI-BUD

[DaveReidUK]

Any official word on what airline will operate UK domestics for Virgin?

See posts #303 and #308 above. Not sure what you mean by "official", I'm not holding my breath for an announcement by VS at this stage.

[EI-BUD]

Sorry Dave I hadnt seen those posts.
Thanks.

[BALHR]

Fascinating stuff, but not an answer to the question: why can the UK not sustain two full-service carriers.

The UK had three full service carriers till recently - and that's just those at LHR!

Now it has two (probably because of some bizarre management decisions at BD) and this is likely to continue.

But what about those not based at LHR, BE and T3 for example, don't they count just because they're "regional"?

Because the competion from other airlines and combine that with the issues with the world economy is facing, means that it is only going to get harder to compete with those airlines, hence the last thing we need is 2 UK-Based Full-Service Airlines competing on routes where there is already stong competition

We are the only nation in Europe (along with Germany) that has this, but due to the incresing competition this cannot go on, what makes things worse is that there is a lack of space at LHR to launch routes to destinations in the emerging world, the last thing we need is those slots being used to add further competition on routes that already have competition

The only reason VS is still running and refusing to sell out is due to SRB, once he retires what will happen after that?

If we do need a 2nd Full-Serivice carrier, we already have one, its called KLM

[fjencl]

Oh no, Oh no.......the 5 days of peace and quiet that we had on here has been shattered again........

[BALHR]

British Airways has adopted the 'Andy Gray style of commentary' - keep talking and all being well, some if it may make sense!.

Keep at it fella

CB

Well none of the users of this forums have come up with a detailed explanation on why you still think a UA-AA merger would be "Anti-Competitive" despite the fact the evidence I have given has proved it is not the case

Oh dear, that's just splitting hairs. Sounds like a lost argument.

Don't you see that Corsair is the "Thomson Airways" of France and Air Europa is the "Monarch" of Spain

Surely you cannot suggest that Thomson and Monarch are "Full-Service" Carriers?

You appear to have all the answers (not necessarily all correct of course!), so perhaps you would like to enlighten the rest of us why you believe that only the UK and Germany in Europe can sustain more than one full service carrier.

I would disgaree on how correct my answers are, but the reason Britain has 2 full-service carriers is due to SRBs stubborness and passion and in the case of Germany, LH being locked out of Berlin due to the Cold War and Berlins ecnomic decline until recently for the same reasons

By the way, Air Berlin is to be honest in some parts more like Monarch that a full-service carrier and it is pretty much in business mainly thanks to Eithad

[BALHR]

Oh no, Oh no.......the 5 days of peace and quiet that we had on here has been shattered again........

The reason why is because I have been busy...

[Fairdealfrank]

Quote: "I would disgaree on how correct my answers are, but the reason Britain has 2 full-service carriers is due to SRBs stubborness and passion and in the case of Germany, LH being locked out of Berlin due to the Cold War and Berlins ecnomic decline until recently for the same reasons

By the way, Air Berlin is to be honest in some parts more like Monarch that a full-service carrier and it is pretty much in business mainly thanks to Eithad"


Have to say that "SRBs stubborness" and "Cold War and Berlins ecnomic decline" are not valid reasons. Think again.
Many carriers are taking on "hybrid" characteristics as they attempt to deal with difficult circumstances.

Very early on, carriers such as BD and EI and several North American carriers, for example, started charging for catering on shorthaul flights.

Then came booking with credit card charges.

Others got involved in charters and holidays in varying degrees, as well as running standard longhaul flights, for example, BA, VS, UX, SS.

U2 has adopted allocated seating and is chasing business travellers, while FR remains a pure "no frills" operation.

Then there's your example of the similarities of AB and ZB.

Things are not always as cut and dried as they appear at first.