{"id":29281,"date":"2012-12-03T17:27:19","date_gmt":"2012-12-03T15:27:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/?p=29281"},"modified":"2012-12-03T17:27:49","modified_gmt":"2012-12-03T15:27:49","slug":"singapore-airlines-49-stake-in-virgin-atlantic-to-get-more-access-to-heathrow-29281","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/singapore-airlines-49-stake-in-virgin-atlantic-to-get-more-access-to-heathrow-29281\/","title":{"rendered":"Singapore Airlines’ 49% stake in Virgin Atlantic to get more access to Heathrow"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/h1>\n

Singapore Airlines (SIA) has confirmed it is in talks to sell its 49% stake in British carrier Virgin Atlantic.<\/h1>\n

The interested parties have not been named, but Reuters has reported that Delta Air Lines had held recent talks to buy SIA’s stake.<\/p>\n

Delta, the second-largest US airline by operating revenue, has been looking to acquire a stake in Virgin Atlantic for more than two years in an effort to expand its access to London’s Heathrow airport, sources said.<\/p>\n

Previous talks broke down over price and other issues, and there is no guarantee that the recent discussions would result in a pact, Reuters quoted the sources as saying.<\/p>\n

The European Union requires that EU carriers be under European control, meaning Delta would need to involve an EU airline if it sought majority control.<\/p>\n

Delta has been considering ways to partner with Air France-KLM, which could take an additional stake in Virgin and allow the carriers to acquire majority ownership. Virgin founder Sir Richard Branson owns 51% of the airline.<\/p>\n

Delta has made clear that it would like to expand at Heathrow, a lucrative airport for prized corporate passengers where landing slots are generally hard to acquire.<\/p>\n

Virgin is the second-largest carrier at Heathrow after British Airways.<\/p>\n

Sir Richard, who set up Virgin Atlantic in 1984, has been weighing the airline’s future for some time and two years ago appointed Deutsche Bank to examine offers.<\/p>\n

“We are always talking to many airlines on a number of different matters but we never comment on the details of these discussions,” a Virgin Atlantic spokeswoman said. Delta declined to comment.<\/p>\n

Heathrow, Europe’s busiest airport, is operating at close to full capacity after the Government blocked its expansion in 2010.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Singapore Airlines (SIA) has confirmed it is in talks to sell its 49% stake in British carrier Virgin Atlantic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":702,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[80,63,17,1,118,14],"tags":[507,39741,39742,39736,39738,39734,39740,39737,39735],"class_list":["post-29281","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-breaking-news","category-daily","category-europe","category-general","category-hot","category-world","tag-british-airways","tag-british-carrier-virgin-atlantic","tag-delta-airlines-singapore-airlines-virgin-atlantic","tag-heatrow","tag-more-access-heatrow","tag-singapore-airlines","tag-singapore-airlines-confirmed-talks-sell","tag-singapore-airlines-stake-virgin-atlantic","tag-virgin-atlantic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/702"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29281"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29281\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}