Sir Richard Branson bets £1m on Virgin Atlantic survival

[Nawdic]

BBC News:

Virgin boss Sir Richard Branson has bet British Airways (BA) £1m that the Virgin Atlantic brand will still be around in five years.

Writing on the Virgin blog, Sir Richard dismissed suggestions from Willie Walsh, chief executive of International Airlines Group, which owns BA, that the brand would soon disappear.

It has been reported Sir Richard may sell some of his 51% stake.

But he said: "We have no plans to disappear."

Recent reports suggested that Delta Airlines had offered to buy Singapore Airlines' 49% stake in Virgin Atlantic.

As part of that deal, Delta's European partner Air-France-KLM would then buy some of Mr Branson's stake, paving the way for the Virgin brand to disappear from the airline, the reports said.

Sir Richard said that instead of suing BA for Mr Walsh's comments, he would bet £1m, to be distributed to either Virgin Atlantic or BA staff, that his airline brand would still exist in five years.

The offer came on the day that Virgin Atlantic announced details of a short-haul business to compete with British Airways on routes linking London's Heathrow airport and Scotland.

There has been a long history of disputes between BA and Virgin.

Sir Richard has been particularly critical of the number of takeoff and landing slots at Heathrow Airport that BA holds, especially after its parent company IAG bought BMI, which gave it more slots.

He had previously campaigned against BA's proposed merger with American Airlines. They ended up not merging but have an international alliance.

In the early 1990s, Sir Richard won damages and an apology from BA at the High Court for a "dirty tricks" campaign, in which BA allegedly poached passengers, staff and gave negative stories about the Virgin founder to the press.

Discuss.

[orudge]

I was thinking (and hoping) that Virgin Atlantic may join Star Alliance (and that Virgin Australia and maybe even Virgin America would do the same), but SkyTeam? Ergh. Still, we'll see what happens. (SkyTeam is widely considered, mostly by flyers of Star and oneworld, to be the "poor man's alliance".)

United Airlines was looking into a deal to merge with US Airways a few years ago, and everybody was quite surprised at that, but it would seem to have been a ploy to just get an offer instead from Continental Airlines, whom they actually wanted to merge with (and did merge with). It does look like Virgin will need to join some kind of alliance if it wants to remain relevant though - even some of the famously independent Middle Eastern carriers are joining or looking into joining alliances (Qatar has just announced they're to join oneworld, for instance). Emirates will probably remain independent for some time at least I imagine, but Ethiad has been cosying up with various partners.

[JamieLei]

Emirates have been cosying up to Quantas so much that it might actually force Quantas out of oneworld, what with the joint BA/Quantas business ending.

[Geo Ghost]

I found this reply to Branson rather funnny.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20676667

"I don't think £1m would hurt him ... I don't have £1m, so a knee in the groin, maybe - that would be as painful to him as it might be to me"

[PikkaBird]

Quantas Quantas Quantas

Stop that at once.

[Nawdic]

And he's spelled it wrong.


Qantas.

Even my Gooseberry's correct for once.

[EXTspotter]

It is an acronym, so normal engish rules do not apply.

Queensland And Northern Territories Air Service

[JamieLei]

It is an acronym, so normal engish rules do not apply.

Queensland And Northern Territories Air Service

Well excuuuuuuuuuuse me, princess!

[Dave]

QUANTAS.

What's wrong with you!?

[Nawdic]

180px-Qantas_Airways_Limited_logo.svg.png (9.6 KiB) Viewed 1972 times

[Jacko]

[Dave]

OMFG GUY ITS QANTAS I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU DIDN'T KNOW THIS LoLoL

[GurraJG]

It is an acronym, so normal engish rules do not apply.

Queensland And Northern Territories Air Service

Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services. But yes.

[EXTspotter]

That'll teach me for not checking against wikipedia first...

[audigex]

I've just had a document at work from Qantas, their own staff member spelled it wrong I think it's a tricky thing for English speakers to get their head around.