Australia’s competition watchdog has taken another step toward granting a full commercial tie-up for the two Virgin airline brands.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission is set to clear Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Australia to link their respective routes for Virgin-operated round the world journeys.
It issued a ‘draft determination’ for the airlines to expand from their current codeshare arrangement for customers to complete trips on the respective Virgin aircraft.
It covers gateways in Hong Kong and Los Angeles that Virgin Atlantic serves from the UK and Virgin Australia flies to from down under.
Neither airline has any overlapping routes.
"Authorisation will allow the two airlines to coordinate on a wide range of matters, such as jointly managing prices, inventory, and marketing strategies, which are not currently permitted in their existing arm’s length commercial codeshare and loyalty arrangements, " the ACCC said.
"Virgin Australia and Virgin Atlantic are separate businesses that do not operate overlapping services on any routes and are unlikely to do so in the future."
ACCC commissioner Stephen Ridgeway said:" In authorising this cooperation, we expect to see improvements to the carriers’ schedules and services to passengers".
