This seems strange business logic to me as I am sure that they must lose a fair amount of revenue from not being in a decent Alliance. I appreciate that many people are loyal to Virgin as they feel the service is superior to BA et al, and I also appreciate that ST are generally lower standard airlines than Virgin, but does this compensate for the loss of revenue of not being in an alliance??

Not necessarily. It is far from clear that airlines with a limited network necessarily fare better in an alliance than outside it. For some, a series of multiple ad hoc bilateral partnerships/codeshares with carriers in different alliances can make more sense. AS follows a similar strategy, with partnerships with both OW and ST airlines.

Well, I agree it's not going to happen, but as far as partners, Virgin partners with both Continental and Delta, who are both rather large members of skyteam, Virgin also partners wtih Malaysia... If Malaysia Airlines joins Skyteam, there may be more of a precedent. I just don't see Virgin joining any alliance because they are too unique, but if they did I guess my money would be on Skyteam.

With SQ, a *A airline, having a 49% share of VS? Don't think so. *A or nothing.

Swiss will join the SkyTeam
 

rumors in the local press say that swiss doesn't want to be part of lufthansa, wants to join sky team instead. can anyone confirm?

Please cite the local press you are referring to. I see no possibility. LH has already bought Swiss so what are you talking about?

Not that it's going to rock the airline world or anything; I was on a KLM codeshare on Air Portugalia last month and the inflight magazine stated how they hoped to join skyteam. Now if they'd only do it before January so I can get miles.....