Well, if you couldn’t see this coming… you need new glasses.
Virgin Group today lodged a formal complaint at the European Commission over International Consolidated Airlines Group takeover of British Midland Airways.
Virgin group argues there will be a ” “choice of one” on flights between Aberdeen and Edinburgh and Heathrow (ignoring the small matter of flights to other London airports such as Stansted and Gatwick). Virgin argues that this would give IAG’s British Airways unit a monopoly from Heathrow to Scotland.
Virgin also states British Airways would have the “opportunity and the means” to increase fares dramatically and reduce flights on routes. Citing previous actions, when BMI withdrew from Glasgow, prices went up, whilst the number of flights decreased (but strangely the bit about up-scaling to larger aircraft was missed out)
Richard Branson has been rolled out with the following comments.
“When British Airways was left the only operator on the Glasgow to Heathrow route in 2011, fares paid by Scottish travellers rocketed by 34% in six months. That is not beneficial, that is backbreaking and plainly unfair.
“BA is already operating on 60% of BMI’s routes so this move is clearly about knocking out the competition.”
“The regulators cannot allow British Airways to sew up UK flying and squeeze the life out of the Scottish travelling public.
“It is vital that regulatory authorities, in the UK as well as in Europe, give this merger the fullest possible scrutiny and ensure it is stopped.”
Psst. Richard. Little small thing. I know it’s inconvenient, but one needs to look toward the Orange Spectre (EasyJet) a certain Irish Airline (Ryanair), and dread the thought: YOUR OWN TRAIN NETWORK (Virgin Trains, as well as East Coast Trains) to see the real competition going on. Domestic has always been a fight of feed traffic. What isn’t feed these days is sapped up by the other carriers.
Heathrow, whilst the so-called gateway to the United Kingdom isn’t the only game in town, with capacity to London City, London Stansted and Gatwick Airports
I strongly doubt that the domestics would last long under Virgin operation anyway – least of all they’re expensive to run, with a slot portfolio that screams long haul travel.
IAG has secured regional links already within Scotland with the slow sale of BMI Regional to Granite Aviation – and Lufthansa helping out as usual. Air France-KLM is the regional king in the United Kingdom, connecting to their hubs in Amsterdam and Paris, which leaves UK connections in their usual place.
Let the games go into full speed.
Shock horror! I don’t see their complaint making much difference. IAG can point out LH’s position at FRA, AF’s position at CDG and KLM’s position at AMS.
Nor do I. If Branson wanted BMI, he should had paid out when he had the chance. Moaning about it now is hardly going to do much good, save a few slots to divest to shut him up….