My dreams of Virgin Australia joining Star Alliance have been dashed. After Ansett Australia collapsed in March 2002, there have been extremely limited options to get around Australia if you’re loyal to Star and want to earn and burn miles. It appears new options will continue to remain very distant in the future.
Virgin Australia CEO John Borghetti told The Australian that the airline presently has no intentions of joining a global alliance and if they did, Sky Team would be the better option. Delta loyalists will be happy, though, as Virgin Australia remains one of the easier – and more reasonable – airlines on which to redeem SkyPesos for award travel.
“If you were to go down that path… it’s wrong to assume Star is the obvious choice,” he told the reporter. “Delta is in Sky Team and Sky Team is a very formidable group, and I think Delta are terrific partners.”
He also noted the increasing trend of airline consolidation and even pointed out that cross-border mergers might one day negatively impact the alliances we know today.
When I tweeted a link earlier this evening, one of my followers responded, “Star can’t get *all* the good airlines.”
I will still dream, though.
(Hat Tip: Australian Business Traveller)
When will we see Virgin Atlantic join an alliance? Last I knew SQ owned like 49% and Branson was selling some. Not sure if SQ can buy that or anyone foreign can, but maybe have another * airline buy a couple percent make move them over to the good side. But then again, with the ending of UA/VS redemption that kinda dashes those hopes.
@Kris: I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised with Virgin Australia not wanting to jump into an alliance. As you note about Atlantic, all the Virgin companies sort of do there own thing and I guess respectfully so since they’re a unique child in the airline industry.
Yeah really see. Virgin Australia is an awesome airline
SkyTeam? Seriously? Air France, KLM and Aeroflot are all dead European airlines. Star Alliance is the way to go. I’ll be a Virgin AU customer for life is they merge with Star.
@AussieJay: I agree. It still hurts that there’s no Star option in Australia.