Feasibility for Virgin to join Etihad Airways Partner?

[Arthur T]

I have been struggling to see despite Etihad having 21% stake in Virgin Australia holdings, unlike other shareholders such as SIA and ANZ provide a more comprehensive frequent flyer integration?

A lot other airlines who Etihad invest in do have a logo called 'Etihad Airways Partner' and they allow members within this partnership to earn and redeem miles each other.

So far, Velocity still cannot earn points and status credits on EY partners such as AZ, HM, 9W etc, which potentially will lead VA to lose customers from its key customer base from India and Italy; considering the large amount of migrants that we have in Australia.

Moreover, I find it interesting on the other hand SIA's Vistara is not providing partnership with Velocity frequent flyer. Certainly as a new start up, SIA would love to open its customer base within its own portfolio as much as possible to turn Vistara break even in the short term. Why SIA failed to use its influence to allow Velocity members to earn/burn points on Vistara?

The current number of partners for Virgin, to be honest, is too narrow and despite it is gaining strong presence domestically now, the future growth must be in the international market and I can see huge holes in our neighbour land.

So finally, is it feasible for Virgin to join EAP, or to expand its partnership to increase its catchment? Surely Virgin don't want to lose to Qantas as the international ops for QF is getting better and could become the dominant airline of Australia for overseas flights.