Virgin Atlantic agrees to launch Seoul flights to allow Korean / Asiana merger to proceed

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• Paul says:

  1 Mar1 March 14:55

  The Seoul London route can’t and won’t work for Virgin. It never worked for BA especially on point to point traffic. There just isn’t enough traffic and very little transfer traffic to VS in London.

  ICN is a mega Asian hub quite unlike Kimpo in the days when BA operated the route via HKG and packed the plane between SEL and HKG with massive groups at $399 return. This probably just covered BAs operating costs along with Cargo revenue but as soon as it went non stop the route didn’t last. The Korean crew were got rid of.

  BA went back briefly before covid but it was always marginal. You can imagine BA would also have been approached but have clearly said no.

  I fear there is more politics going on here than business sense!!

  • Rhys says:

    1 Mar1 March 15:16

    Much less competition now. No BA. No Asiana (presumably). Korean may decide to pull out if it codeshares with Virgin (including connections).

  • Rob says:

    1 Mar1 March 15:40

    Pretty sure BA was NOT approached. Why would Korean want to hand over its lounges and access to its frequent flyer scheme to BA, which would be a tough competitor? For a start, BA could offer onward connecting flights to Europe or elsewhere in the UK with no terminal changes, unlike Korean, Asiana or Virgin. Preferable for Korean to sweeten the deal with Virgin somehow to ensure they jump in.

    • Paul says:

      1 Mar1 March 22:23

      Actually BA didn’t have the EU/LHR transfer traffic either! KLM/Lufthansa and to a lesser degree Swiss were the go to airlines for Koreans travelling to Europe. They are long standing reliable partners, quite unlike BA who have withdrawn from the route at least twice and perhaps three times. The stooshy over the firing of the Korean crew was huge news in Korea and for a nation with such long memories and pride, was hugely damaging to BAs brand.
      Despite K pop and squid game I am not sure they are ready for the Virgin livery.
      What I perhaps hadn’t appreciated was that Korean / Asiana were either fully or partially withdrawing from the LHR route. That will help.

      • Peggerz says:

        2 Mar2 March 08:41

        @Paul Not seen Stooshy used on HfP before. Well done for its use, it brought a smile to my face….

  • MortonDill says:

    1 Mar1 March 16:21

    What about at the other end so VS pax connecting onto KE that was what BA never had? BA could only ever fill the plane with Europe to Seoul Pax as no one flys from Seoul to the US via Europe and they had no partner in Seoul either. That might be the difference for VS the onward connections ?

    • Mark says:

      1 Mar1 March 17:34

      Except that there are very few routes for which it would really make sense to fly from London via Seoul, especially given the situation with Russia over-flights. Japan, maybe some Chinese destinations but not much else.

    • memesweeper says:

      1 Mar1 March 17:50

      They could offer connections to SYD, for instance, with largely the same convenience as BA do via SIN.

      Assuming they could fly over Russia, of course.

      • Paul says:

        1 Mar1 March 22:26

        More so ( well at least when Russia was open. Seoul is on the great circle route from LHR to SYD. Incredible it was never exploited.

        • John says:

          2 Mar2 March 09:43

          All of Asia is on the great circle route to Sydney then. Seoul is 100 miles more than the shortest distance, but even Sri Lanka is only 300 miles (3%) more, although there are winds to consider. KE and OZ did/do compete on UK to Australia

• Lady London says:

  1 Mar1 March 14:56

  A nice introduction of Virgin Atlantic aa they move into SkyTeam

• Peggerz says:

  1 Mar1 March 15:06

  I have never been a VS flyer/ points collector but this may change my mind as one of my kids stays in Seoul. I used Avios to get there with QR last year, q-suites and all.
  It may be that, unless matters deteriorate and BA have to take on the route, I have to think about ditching the 2-4-1 journey I’ve just commenced and the Avios collection I participate in. Unless QR take the hint of course and allow us to use the 2-4-1 with them soon….

• Peter says:

  1 Mar1 March 15:27

  So who will torpedo the merger for this Asiana Diamond? The EU? 😬

• vlcnc says:

  1 Mar1 March 15:35

  I’m not sure I understand how it really provides competition given VS are part of Skyteam now as well as KE, and also will codeshare with their only other direct competition?? Although I guess it’s one of those routes that most people I suspect will connect for anyway at the many hubs in Europe or Asia on the way there as it is very well connected to those.

  • Rob says:

    1 Mar1 March 15:37

    Indeed. Obviously Virgin is the ‘soft’ option vs BA which is the only other realistic game in town.

    • vlcnc says:

      1 Mar1 March 15:48

      I am surprised iBA doesn’t see Seoul as an important destination but I have nothing to base that on but just impression that it feels like important world city these days in terms business and culture.

      • Paul says:

        1 Mar1 March 22:35

        Indeed it is, but then so is much of China, Indonesia, etc. the list of major cities BA has pulled out of in Asia is vast with 3 in Japan alone! TPE, SEL, MNL CGK KUL BKK all gone. The argument is that QR etc cover those routes but the truth is BA we’re always sniffy about the far east. Just before the first gulf war they had a manager in China who pushed water uphill trying to get them to serve BJS non stop daily along with Shanghai. LH already were even then but long term strategy was not in the DNA

        • vlcnc says:

          2 Mar2 March 13:41

          I do feel there is a little bit of racism in these decisions – does feel like BA receded into basically serving “white destinations” i.e. places mainly where white people go, with a particular concentrated focus on the transatlantic market and didn’t want to serve routes where there might be a more divers passenger base. A far cry from the very outward gestures of being a world airline with the “the world’s favourite airline” tag they ran with in the late 90’s.

        • Rhys says:

          2 Mar2 March 16:08

          I think you may be reading into something that isn’t there. I imagine BA is going to wherever the money is. Obviously, America is a richer country than Thailand or many other Asian destinations.

          One of the issues is that BA is both slot constrained and aircraft/crew constrained. The latter it has some influence on, but it can’t easily increase the number of slots it holds at Heathrow without Heathrow expansion, which it has no control over. So it flies the planes where they make the most money.

          With regards to Seoul, BA was up against not one but two home carriers, plus the usual ME3 for connecting passengers. So it wasn’t exactly an underserved route.

        • vlcnc says:

          3 Mar3 March 16:07

          Perhaps you are right Rhys- it was something my brother posited as he felt BA staff maybe didn’t like serving certain destinations that were a bit less polished. It has felt a bit strange as growing up it felt like BA went everywhere but not anymore and yes that is because the market has changed so much with a lot more high-quality competition going east than there is west. I was intrigued to read recently that BA were thinking of returning to Dhaka in 2020 with 787 service which was surprising so maybe they are constantly looking at markets again if they think they can make it work commercially.

        • Rhys says:

          3 Mar3 March 16:13

          I think BA staff would love it if BA returned to Bangkok and other cities in Asia – a lot of these are popular holiday destinations after all!

• pigeon says:

  1 Mar1 March 15:51

  Okay, so is Korean Air going to underwrite VS’s losses for 3 years, and when these 3 years are up, the Seoul flight goes, and VS gets a pair of slots, which they can e.g. use for another Atlanta service?

  • Rob says:

    1 Mar1 March 16:12

    Very possibly ….

• Dev says:

  1 Mar1 March 16:38

  Cue identical priced fares on both VS and KE, and how is the supposed to provide more competition when both are in the same alliance and codeshare with each other?

  • Benilyn says:

    1 Mar1 March 20:13

    I am a noob here but I guess more supply of flights, assuming same demand, prices have to /logical to fall?

    • John G says:

      2 Mar2 March 08:23

      Except this will probably just replace the existing Asiana flight, so no extra capacity.

• ChasP says:

  1 Mar1 March 16:41

  I also fail to see how a codeshare gives competition
  However it does mark the start of a profitable new Virgin enterprise – Horse trading !

  • Nick says:

    1 Mar1 March 21:17

    Codeshares are not joint businesses, no revenue (or cost) sharing is allowed. Pricing has to remain independent and not co-ordinated. Plenty easy to retain competitive while codesharing.

    This is of course entirely compatible with Rob’s statement of VS being the ‘better’ option for KE though. Much better to have a friend operate than a foe. The lounge can be dressed up as a benefit that would have happened with SkyTeam anyway.

    If they can have sensible connections it might just work out. Pusan is where the business money is… BA had a train connection (with through fares) for a while, but the company stopped serving ICN, only the city centre, and no other airlines interlined properly with them. Add a decent timed connection to AKL (KE flies direct) and bingo, VS has a market. Will take effort, but it could be a good move for them.

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.