Virgin to take on BA in Europe

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travelnews/4984108/Virgin-to-take-on-BA-in-Europe.html

Exciting times ahead maybe ....

David

EDIT: for some reason link wont click, you need to copy and paste it [?] (RichardMannion: Link fixed) - thanks [y]

[Darren Wheeler]

Not sure on the logic behind that. UK-Europe is very well served by BA, BMI et all, never mind all the LCC's.

Surely they would be better concentrating on their core, long-haul product?

Well perhaps 'Virgin may take on BA in Europe' [:D].

It's a bit old news since VS has been seeking all manner of options for this over recent years.

Perhaps VS has finally done a deal with LH to split up BMI, other than that perhaps wait until runway 3 is ever build to gain more slots!

Ergo, this poster will wait for something definite before becoming excited.

I'd be amazed if we ever saw Virgin-liveried planes flying round Europe. More likely IMO is a three-way tie in with LH and BD.

[RichardMannion]

I missed the bit about the huge profits BMI and BA Europe made last year....

I'd much rather VS focus any capacity for expansion it may have in the short/medium term future (once the credit markets are more stable) on:

a) getting the consistency right on its current long haul services;
b) re-fitting the LGW fleet, and then;
c) expanding to other long haul destinations such as Canada, South America, New Zealand/other Australian cities

The Europe market has sold out IMHO!

quote:Originally posted by RichardMannion
I missed the bit about the huge profits BMI and BA Europe made last year....


Exactly what I was about to say Richard. Just look at the post I put this morning about BD's huge losses last year, which have been blamed on their domestic and Intra europe flights.

The BD experience just goes to show that to be able to compete against AF/KL and LH you need a huge European network. I was of the view that BD did a pretty god job at it but looking at the way in which LH has been dropping BD routes like flies, and the results, it is clear that they were not doing anything good.

Would be a bad move for VS. What they should really be doing is focusing on getting a closer working relationship with LH. Whilst *a membership, may be a mile off (I hear screams about CH overcrowding/lower reward availability already from VF members) there is no harm in getting a closer working relationship with the two carriers.

SRB has already had a nasty experience in Europe with Virgin Express and I doubt he will want to be back quick. Interestingly Virgin Express was merged into what is now Brussels Airlines which of course is now owned (in part I think) by LH. So there will be some kind of SRB/LH Relationship already.

[Scrooge]

As others have pointed out, what a total waste of slots, now if they were going to start working closely with BE and give BE slots in Heathrow to act as feeders to the VS longhaul then ok, but as it is, does anyone really need to fly to LHR to connect anymore from mainland Europe ?

And in another news, bmi announces a loss of a whopping 100m for last year.

I'd take this with a pinch of salt.

The only way Virgin could go into the short-haul market at LHR is through an acquisition/joint-venture and it has been making soundings about wanting to do a deal with LH/BD for months, and nothing has happened. LH seems to be keeping its own Counsel as to what it will do with bmi. In the short term I can only see bmi building on its niche of becoming a mid-haul carrier and a pretty swift integration of back-office functions with LH to stem the very hefty losses.

Entering short-haul through organic growth is a complete non-starter. For short-haul routes you need frequency to compete, so for just one route you would need (as an absolute minimum) at least three slot pairs at LHR. And then there is the issue of how Virgin could compete with the established players in the short-haul market which is increasingly commoditised.

Also worth noting that having frequent flyer status on one of the three alliances is a big benefit so Virgin would be at a disadvantage. There's quite a considerable difference when flying EuroTraveller on BA if the colour of your card is Silver/Gold rather than Blue.

And also, with all respect to Virgin, they've never 'got' Europe.
If they couldn't package it and sell one week and two week holidays successfully, (remember VirginSun?) I doubt they will want to get into the high frequency scheduled flight market.
If Virgin can choose their battles, why choose BA/Ryanair/easyJet/KLM-AF/Lufthansa?