VA potentially partnering with Sri Lankan Airlines?

https://bnn.network/world/australia/srilankan-expands-operations-to-australia-with-virgin/

This news is popping up in numerous sites in the past few days.

It doesn't appear to be confirmed as VA themselves haven't published anything though, but if it is happening and is just in the negotiation phase.

Sri Lankan Airlines is a Oneworld partner. If this happens after Qatar linked to VA, it's an interesting move.

I hope they don’t, otherwise it’s highly likely that we’ll see a repeat of the current Qatar-Qantas-Virgin dispute.

SriLankan airlines is a member of the oneworld airline alliance, and its de-facto assigned partner in Australia is Qantas. Should this rumoured Sri Lankan partnership go ahead, Sri Lankan could become embroiled in a bilateral rights saga with the Federal Government if they request additional flights.

By the way, the current Qantas-Qatar-Virgin dispute is fully Qatar Airways’ fault. The Qantas-Emirates alliance started in 2012, and Qatar joined oneworld in 2014, so Qatar knew full well that a saga was in the making and it’s entirely their fault. SriLankan should consider the repercussions for a decision that results in them becoming disloyal to a fellow oneworld partner and partnering with Virgin Australia.

Also, why is Virgin interested in aggressively chasing up Qantas’ oneworld partners and starting partnerships with them that create setbacks for Qantas’ international plans and jeopardise the future of the oneworld alliance? Virgin should focus on themselves by actually flying to long-haul destinations instead of lazily delegating those tasks to other airlines.

From what I have read, the Sri Lankan agreement with Virgin AUstralia is ONLY an interline agreement - not a full codeshare / alliance agreement..

Airlines typically provide or enter into interline agreements with multiple carriers, simply to provide seamless inter-operability between non-aligned carriers. Think of the example of United Airlines - for many years, it has had - and still maintains - an interline agreement with Qantas. QF's primary US partner is American Airlines, but this interline agreement with UA allows QF passengers to access cities on the United network that AA may not fly to. It also provides another option, should seats not be available on AA. Obviously, AA (and AS - Alaska Airlines) are QF's US oneworld and preferred code-share partners. With an interline agreement, UA is not required to extend OW status benefits to any QF passenger. It merely allows an entire journey to be ticketed one one ticket for the partners.

Sri Lankan is merely doing the same thing with it's interline agreement with Virgin Australia. It merely allows UL passengers to access both QF and VA services. One option will provide oneworld benefits (QF) whilst the other option (VA) simply provides an additional backup.

The Qatar issue that you allude to with Virgin Australia, was simply a method of QR extracting 'revenge' on QF, by forming a competitive codeshare to ensure seamless travel on both QF and VA, while prefacing VA as its 'preferred' intra-Australian carrier. It also provided badly needed access to international travel for VA customers, given VA's bankruptcy and Etihad's then (temporary) withdrawal from the Australian market. Given the Qantas/Emirates agreement - which has, to this day - requirements for continued Government renewal approval, due to its 'exclusivity' arrangement.

It should also be noted that there has been some recent speculation that QR has just (or is about to) take a minor equity interest in UL.

Last I've checked Alliance partners aren't "banned" from partnering with airlines outside of their alliance. NZ has a codeshare with QF on flights in Australia, ditto with SQ/GA (SkyTeam) and NZ/CX (Oneworld) to name a few examples.