Well I guess VA will be eagerly waiting to see how the DL/NW merger works out, because interlining with this 'mega-carrier' in the US market would be highly beneficial to VA. It's understandable that VX wasn't VA's first choice for a US partner due to their limited scope on the American continent.

The fact that VA's outlined their plans to fly to South Africa, this idea of 'doing it ourselves' may explain why VA haven't as yet created an agreement with VS. I mean, why wouldn't VA eventually hop on to the Kangaroo Route even if there's a load of capacity already on their? (pardon the puns :p )

An Australian-based airline should find enough of a market on this route, right? :confused:

re needing more partnerships.... I think they will struggle to take FF's away from QF without a broader program and reciprocal lounge/benefits for FF's.

IE... why would a QF gold/plat move to VA? Currently they can travel pretty extensively with Oneworld and get reciprocal lounge access etc etc.

Currently velocity gold just gets you access to Virgin Blue's lounges.

I think they will struggle to get the Y+/J cabins filled unless they have a better offerring for FF members.

Shameel Kumar:

I thought it was some copyright issue like you said but that's a faint memory now!

Agree with everything else that you have said, given the airline doesn't have a first class, very surprising that it has gone for the Skybed option.

Again we are getting the Skybed impression from one YouTube video. Granted it was a V Australia video and look pretty good! So I guess it's safe to say that the Skybed would be used.

Would have been a good differentiator having a J suite instead of the Skybed J seat.

No matter what seat they put, it will be VERY hard for V to grab the high end business customers from QF.