Will Sir Richard Branson Have to Sacrifice Virgin Galactic to Save Virgin Atlantic?
Sir Richard Branson's Virgin empire is in trouble.
Last month, in a blog post that verged on desperation, Britain's most famous billionaire begged the British government for a bailout of his Virgin Atlantic commercial airline. A "devastating ... pandemic" had dried up demand for air travel and grounded much of Virgin Atlantic's fleet, posing an "unprecedented crisis" for the discount airline. Without a $620 million loan from British taxpayers, Virgin America could "go bust" (warned Britain's Guardian newspaper).
Last month, I explained how trouble at Virgin Atlantic could spill over into Virgin Galactic (NYSE: SPCE), Branson's experimental effort to spin a space tourism industry, by distracting its owner and starving Virgin Galactic of financial support from its parent company. And now it seems the situation could be even worse than that.
Source Fool.com
