Originally Posted by 777 global mile hound
Hope this is not the case
I am holding out hope simply because everything I read says that Mr.Branson wants to fly more planes in and out of LHR,Hong Kong and Sydney and other major destinations.
Putting every thing under one umbrella makes perfect sense and creates less brand confusion.It also gives the opportunity for Virgin to compete as one global brand.
Rather then the current split the divisions and regional brands up.
By not merging they give giant Alliances like Star and One World a better platform to keep market share.IMO this would let Virgin go after more of the fully engaged One World/Star Crowd (self Included)
I would throw my elite status out the window not to deal with Qantas at all and their anti customer policies.
And that is saying it politely.
Mr Branson wants a lot of things but in reality doesn't get them that often - in the end he is a master of self promotion but not necessarily of running companies. The fact that the virgin group only owns one Virgin company 100% (Virgin Rail which nobody in their right mind would want to buy) means that in many cases Branson does not have ultimate say in the companies after the initial launch period.
With the Virgin branded airlines the ownership is:
Virgin Atlantic - Virgin Group 51% Singapore Airlines 49%
Virgin Blue - Virgin Group 25% Patrick Corporation 62.42%
Virgin Nigeria - Virgin Atlantic 49% Local Investors 51%
Virgin Express - Virgin Group 0% DAT Air Group 100%
Virgin Sun (a european holiday charter airline) failed several years ago and Virgin Express has essentially failed as well and will likely cease to exist as a Virgin branded company. Virgin USA if it launches will be limited to 49% non-US ownership so the Virgin Group will never be the majority shareholder.
Branson actually is pretty clever in putting the Virgin brand on many companies worldwide - gives the impression that they are all subsidiaries of the same corporation which isn't really the case at all.
Virgin Blue is pretty unlikely to adopt a common FF prog with Virgin Atlantic (or Virgin Nigeria, Virgin USA for that matter for all the reasons mentioned before) - beyond anything else, if Virgin Nigeria hasn't adopted it (and it offers longhaul service in 3 classes) I don't see Virgin Blue's current model working with it (nor do I see Patrick paying for it).
For the record I also think that Virgin Blue has peddled a lot of hype and in my experience have not lived up to most of it - their customer service is really pretty poor - especially if you want more than 'fun' interactions. I think if they do introduce a FF program many of the people who feel that QF is difficult will find their main problems were with FF redemption and that DJ is just as bad, if not worse. Any DJ FF prog is likely to be copied from LCC progs like Southwest etc - possibly with a high award tie in with Virgin Atlantic (similar to AirTrans other carrier awards) & possibly Singapore Air (of course DJ will proclaim it is a revolutionary program - yada yada yada but I doubt it will be that different).
Each of the Virgin airlines was established to fill a niche and while Ansett's death expanded DJ's possibilities I just don't see enough similarity. DJ set up the blue rooms to compete with QF (and sells access), while Virgin Atlantic only lets premium pax use its club lounges (a copy of BA).
I will be pleasantly suprised if I am wrong but I doubt it.
Oh - for the record, I am a shareholder in both DJ and QF.