Originally Posted by
gloopy
I absolutely realize that it is possible. But we need to go Dubinsky on them if they think they will roll the dice and even maybe casually roll in 4 or 500+ relative new hires blended into our Captain seniority levels. And Atlantic offers little beyond LHR. We've already sold our souls once for some slots, and now we are going to do it again? We need to do London to MCO with at least 3 or 4 widebodies a day, but at least one. Why can't we do ONE per day (and that fake flight number carry over with a plane change does NOT count) when the foreign carriers spam MCO with 4 engine jets hourly. And we can't do a single flight ourselves? UNSAT, and moreover a harbinger of how any VAtlantic deal would go. And the price for that might be a VAmerica windfall of epic proportions? Srsly?
I was just thinking about Virgin Atlantic last week while in JFK. They don't have many gates at T4. Planes are parked at remotes, and moved in for the flight (sort of like... us!). If at least they offered an improvement in the real estate picture and afforded access to something we don't have, it would be nice. I understand the new T4 will only physically add nine gates, and some will be shared with the competition, since we won't fully control the new terminal. So I don't see how Virgin America helps in any way.
And it goes beyond VA/VAmerica. At first glance, I don't believe we discussed this article on the L&G thread:
Jet Airways Asked to Join Air France-KLM, Delta, Alitalia Venture - WSJ.com
Note that Jet Airways is being asked to join in the JV, not just SkyTeam. This is an Indian carrier, running new widebody aircraft between India and the US, and between its' Brussels hub, and EWR and JFK. The article says this:
"...Joining such an alliance would likely help Jet Airways to cost-effectively expand its overseas operations, leveraging the global network of the three other airlines instead of deploying its own aircraft..."
That
almost sounded good: maybe we're delaying their growth, and at least splitting the revenues they're now poaching. But then again, if we want to bring them into the fold because they have a better product and lower costs, and we're afraid of them, then why wouldn't the JV try to favor... the better product and lower costs?
In my mind, the bottom line is that there are very some serious scope issues looming at the large-gauge ("Super-Premium" for you Northies) end of the spectrum, and we're certainly not hearing a whole lot about them.