Originally Posted by
lsquare
What the heck? Why didn't VA team up with UA earlier?
UA did team up with the low cost carrier Virgin Blue in Australia (predecessor to Virgin Australia) with a simple interline and codeshare partnership. Whilst UA fliers were able to burn miles on Virgin Blue and get extra legroom seats on the LCC, VB passengers were not able to do the reverse on Virgin Blue Velocity.
The then-Virgin Blue CEO Brett Godfrey ended the UA codeshare in favour of the DL partnership and JV when he and Branson set up V Australia for their own Australia-USA flights. VA also had VX as a second USA partnership until VX were merged into AS.