Originally Posted by
Bucking Bar
After considering that angle, I think Boyd's missing a couple parts of the puzzle.
Using occam's razor to whittle away at the press reports it would seem that either:
A: Delta and Air France are interested in getting control of Virgin Atlantic and will both maintain a minority ownership interest while codesharing. In effect, making Delta and Air France a sort of Limited Liability Partnership in "SkyTeam Airlines." If it makes money for Delta, management is pleased, or ....
B: If Virgin continues to lose money, then we are defacto debtors in possession. If it goes out of business and we can get parts, or salvage and sell parts for more than we paid, well, that's good too.
Singapore Airlines has lost money in their investment and had to pump precious cash into Virgin to keep it going. Frankly, we are in the best position to run Virgin for a profit; or profit from Virgin if she dies. Probably the next best suitor would be Emirates or Etihad.
I read one article that stated that only the 49% stake of Singapore is for sale. If that's the case AF might not be a player in this. It seems one possible scenario is that Virgin joins Skyteam and then Delta move some of the flying from AF to Virgin. My thinking is that Delta would not eliminate all of the AF flying, just some of it to accommodate Virgin.
Who knows, this thing could go many different ways. Let's hope that our "Delta" flying isn't reduced as a result of whatever the outcome is.