British Airways v Virgin Atlantic. Round by round commentary

SIR RICHARD BRANSON, Virgin Atlantic’s President, has used the opportunity afforded by the current Japan Airlines problems to attack the proposed BA/AA tie-up.  He says that the airlines are demonstrating double standards on anti-trust issues.  Branson quotes oneworld with a statement saying that a JAL/Delta alliance “would raise intractable competition issues and face severe regulatory opposition in the US because of the stranglehold this combination would hold on Japan-USA travel.”  American Airline’s CEO Gerard Arpey has also said “the whole design of open skies and immunity is not to allow the dominant carriers to partner and drive the less dominant carriers out of the market.”  Branson’s retorts that “oneworld’s approach to the potential JAL/Delta transpacific alliance is hypocritical in the extreme.  BA and AA’s arguments against the JAL/Delta transpacific alliance read like a carbon copy of our longstanding objections to a BA/AA transatlantic alliance”. www.atlantic-airlines.com

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