V-Flyer

looks like Virgin have lost out to Easyjet on the London-Moscow route,

Thought a link would be appropriate ...

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/ ... 7920121024

Full info here: http://www.caa.co.uk/application.aspx?c ... l&nid=2186

That's a blow for VS, I can see the point about offering a lower cost alternative (although as we know LCC does not always mean low cost tickets), but VS had a strong bid.

slinky09 wrote:That's a blow for VS, I can see the point about offering a lower cost alternative (although as we know LCC does not always mean low cost tickets), but VS had a strong bid.

I think the CAA are a bit more savvy than DaFT. Wonder if Richard is looking to inflict another bloody nose?

As the route is from gatwick, you will get many people preferring it to going to Heathrow. Having 3 carrier provide a route from Heathrow, or two from Heathrow and one from Gatwick? Provides a bit more choice IMO. Seems good for BA though, no extra competiton on business class fares.

Does this mean that VS have lost out on the remedy slots BA has to give up when it bought BMI?

So what route may VS be looking at now, agree Moscow would have fitted in well, but it does make sense to have a carrier from LGW. I assume the LHR slots are still available for somewhere else??

clarkeysntfc wrote:Does this mean that VS have lost out on the remedy slots BA has to give up when it bought BMI?

No they are protected for Aberdeen and Edinburgh.

VS have a code share with Transaero already so can still market flights. In a way.

clarkeysntfc wrote:Does this mean that VS have lost out on the remedy slots BA has to give up when it bought BMI?

No. The bid for traffic rights and BA slots are two separate processes. Virgin's bid for all 12 BA slot pairs should still be valid, they just won't be able to use any of them for Moscow.

If Virgin had been successful in bidding for Moscow traffic slots but didn't get the BA slots there would have been nothing to stop them using their existing slots for the Moscow service.