Well it’s taken long enough for the Bearded One to get involved, but Richard Branson is calling on regulators to examine the purchase of slots at London’s Heathrow by IAG from Lufthansa.. and it’s British Midland International subsidiary according to Bloomberg
Virgin Say:
“Branson is concerned that BA could be attempting to salami slice BMI’s key assets, increasing their dominance whilst leaving just an uncompetitive and unattractive rump for sale,”
Apparently, it’s been revelation that the slots that were sold last week were initially sold for lease – not permanent sale
It’s an open secret that Virgin Atlantic has been eyeing BMI for quite some time – either to use it for slots, or to create a European/Domestic feed with the Virgin name.
But there is a bigger issue. If Virgin have been looking at this since 1999, why the hell are they waiting? Because Lufthansa won’t sell BMI off without trying to recover some of the losses. In addition, Virgin has it’s own issues to attend to since the three major alliances have teamed up – leaving Virgin on it’s own over the pond.
Certainly, it’s getting to the point where Virgin must either put up the cash… or back off…
