What agreement were you expecting? That airlines can see each others bookings prior to ticketing? Not a thing. For ANY airline.

Virgin (or anyone else) will ticket you without the visa. They might not check you in & issue you a boarding pass without seeing a visa, but that's different. If you were ticketed by AirAsia & had the confirmation/PNR at check in with Virgin, then Virgin (or anyone else) check-in staff *can* look up and confirm that. But, they often won't bother, especially out of the US where US employees tend to be lazy and pedenatic about the rules in that they only bother to read the first page of TIMATIC and then apply only what's on that first page.

As with most things intl travel related, ppl need to understand what is going on and really should do all the things they should really do. Needing a transit visa really shouldn't be a shock for anyone, just like making sure you have travel insurance should also be a no brainer. That said, lots of dumb people out there, so the reminder is not unfounded. Understanding that transit visas are NOTHING to do with "agreements between airlines" is one part of that, if only because the implied agreements simply don't exist.