Virgin launches campaign to spoil BA’s party

British Airways, a business competitor of Virgin Atlantic has plans to sign a transatlantic combined venture with American Airlines. Towards this attempt, this week British Airways is filing an anti-trust immunity application to the United States Transport Department so that they can actualize a revenue sharing tie-up with American Airlines. This is third time when these two airways have tried to come together. Last time, in year 2002, British Airways dropped the idea when regulatory bodies claimed that both the airways should drop sixteen pair of their air-flight slots.

Virgin Atlantic is enraged with this attempt and argues that with this tie-up both the airlines will have monopoly over flights between Heathrow and the US, which is not good for the customers. Therefore, to perturb these plans, Virgin is floating an advertisement campaign of ₤3m, as soon as BA will file the application.

Chief Executive of Virgin Atlantic Steve Ridgway has pointed out that the two airlines would be accountable for 62% of passengers traveling between Heathrow and the US, and would control 49% of prime-time arrival slots at the Britain’s premier airport. He pointed out that this governing share could not be justified in favour of consumers.

Ridgway also shared that the traffic rights deal between America and the European Union, which happened in March, in order to increase airline competition has not generated any satisfactory results.

Whereas sources from BA said that once the deal will get the approval, there will be nine airlines flying over the Atlantic with an anti-trust immunity and only Virgin would be without it.

Please visit www.virgin-atlantic.com and www.britishairways.com for more details