Virgin Blue joining Star Alliance?
 

There is a rife rumour that Virgin Blue is considering joining Star Alliance. One of the latest speculations here

Another speculation from a source that is normally quite reliable:

http://atwonline.com/international-a...rgin-blue-1213

[quote]

speculation increased that Blue would join the Star Alliance following CEO John Borghetti’s presence at the Star CEOs' meeting in Queenstown, New Zealand on Monday.

[unquote]

With the proposed alliance with DL still on the cards, I suspect JB is courting both ST and *A.

Great news if it happens....Keep my fingers crossed. Be better if they even code shared w UA for inter OZ flights

Very interesting to look at the different 'spin' in these two articles.

From the first:

> Virgin Blue ... CEO John Borghetti ... is willing to play every card in his hand,
> and then some, as he reshapes the low-cost Virgin Blue into a full-service
> airline .... Star is ... very strong in Asia and Borghetti has spoken many
> times of his desire to form a partnership with a leading Asian carrier.

While the title of the second is:

> Star Alliance courts Virgin Blue

Question: who is the suitor and who is the pursued?

cheers,

Henry

BTW: Good luck to Mr Borghetti with that 'reshaping'. I had one flight on DJ, once, and it was a very unpleasant LCC experience.

Oh, there's no question in my mind that Star is the suitor and Virgin Blue is the one being wooed with flowers and chocolates - but writing the article from a local perspective, readers are more interested in DJ than Star Alliance (and DJ is far more relevant to the local market).

'DJ looking to join Star' (and how that would fit into Borhgetti's plans) has more impact and relevance than 'Star woos DJ', which is more of a higher-level industry yarn, so that's the angle I chose to focus on.

As editor of Australian Business Traveller, one could easily state that your trying to push your own rag. :rolleyes:

Secondly, Star Alliance still has big brand awareness is Australia thanks to Ansett.

Not sure I agree, TG. Someone here asks a specific question. I choose to come in and answer it, offering that perspective as the writer of that article. How do you feel that my joining the conversation to add value to it is me trying to 'push' my own publication, even when I haven't even mentioned it by name or linked to it in that post? :rolleyes: backatcha :p

Oh, it's got big brand awareness in AU through other partners who are still flying. I didn't say it has no awareness at all. I simply said it has no current AU partner. And I'd suggest that the average flyer in Australia (not the more savvy FT experts) would not have the Star-Ansett alliance front of mind – if you asked them about Star my feeling they'd first think of SQ, maybe AirNZ or United ahead of Ansett.

But either way, as I mentioned earlier, Virgin as an airline has more impact and relevance for the local traveller than Star as an alliance - and from the reader's perspective, as a journalist I know that Virgin has more pull into a story than Star – the airline comes first to most people in a story like this, so you lead with the strongest angle. Anyway, that's just again explaining the reasoning behind that call, which might be a bit too esoteric for some, but I felt it was germane to the discussion.

I'm pretty sure *A's terms would be "dump DL". Given that the US DOJ isn't so hot about the DL/VA ATI application, I guess DJ could live with that- though it does make one wonder about VA's route network. It rather overlaps with UA's Australia routes, and there's a case to be made there's too much capacity compared to the cozy oligopoly days of just UA and QF on the USA-Australia route.

I also have to wonder if *A would also play hardball with VA and DJ playing footsie with VX...

I know DJ really doesn't have much in common with the rest of the Virgin empire other than the name & perhaps a minority stake (not sure about this??) by Branson. Wouldn't it be nice if this serves as a launching pad for the rest of the Virgin empire to join *A (one can only dream, right!)??

LAX

Count me as a fellow dreamer!

I am all for DJ joining *A - this would solve my problems when flying in Aus and allow lounge access (and hopefully other perks)

I too would love to see all the Virgins joining *A! I still don't understand the relationship between Virgin Blue and V Australia though...

Being based in HBA and regularly flying to Europe on LH/LX/TG/SQ etc, I would really LOVE to have DJ joining... It would finally sort out all the issues related to connecting to and from HBA...

Also just on another note, being NZ based, Air NZ run a number of code-shares with VS - although VS joining *A is debatable it still offers great connections to Europe via SFO, NRT (as examples). DJ however is in a great position to offer *A Aus Domestic services