<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by tom911:
Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Group is to launch a new low-cost carrier in the US in a bold bid to take advantage of the global crisis in the airline industry.
The new airline, which is provisionally called Virgin America, could be launched as early as the end of 2003.
Virgin has set up a project team in the US and is in discussions with US-based investors. The group has decided to launch a new airline rather than buy into a struggling existing airline with a high cost base.
http://www.dailytelegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml? xml=/money/2003/03/23/cnvirg23.xml&sSheet=/money/2003/03/23/ixfrontcity.html</font>
Branson has made some big mistakes in the past and he has had some great successes too. This action on his part could be a brilliant move. Those businesses that cannot only endure an industry re-structuring and an economic recession but thrive and grow despite of it are the substance from which entrepreneurial dreams of big money are made from. Should be interesting to see what (if anything) happens and if there is any American equity financing available for this industry, since I thought that x% of any domestic carrier has to be American-owned.