80% you won't get your 10% discount. so in the next few minutes, somebody comes in and wants to buy a ticket across the atlantic, you know, what's the best airline flying across the atlantic? well, virgin atlantic wins all the awards as best airlines but is it likely that travel agent will recommend virgin atlantic? for their very survival, they have to say i would recommend you fly british airways/american airlines because they've got to get up to that 80% of the market share next year. so it goes on. so american and british are driving out the remnants of the competition. i mean, it is preposterous that competition authorities can even consider allowing these two airlines to merge. i mentioned coke and pepsi. who would imagine coke and pepsi being allowed to merge? it's the exact equivalent if you look at their market share.

it is preposterous that it can be allowed but the frightening thing in america is that it can be done on political reasons. it doesn't necessarily have to be done on pure analytical competition reasons. this is going to go to the department of transportation, not necessarily the department of justice, which would look at something like this on strict competition reasons and policy can play a part and that worries us. that's why i've come here today to really appeal to the department of transport to look at this properly and realize that we have -- we're worried, we've spent 25 years building this, we have introduced thousands of innovations which other airlines have copied us on, we introduced seat back videos in all economy class seats, they never existed before, we pioneered them, we are the first people in the world to do that. we introduced premium economy, we introduced full flat beds 234

upper class, stand-up bars for passengers. it's important for the consumer that smaller airlines like virgin atlantic survive and thrive. thank you. >> how much will your revenue de creation from north atlantic flights if british airways gets anti-trust immunity with american?. >> i have no idea exactly how much revenue will decrease but for the reasons i just -- the example i just gave with the travel trade, you could then move on to corporate and one can have the same arguments with them. they would be able to twist arms, they'll be the biggest mafioso boss in town and i mean they have even managed to go into travel agents and

corporates over the last few weeks to get them to sign documents saying we think this merger will be a good idea. what choice do these corporates or travel agents have when these enormous companies come in. i have no idea exactly how much it will -- >> what chance is there that virgin could actually fail if there is this merger? >> um, we -- we have battled through 9/11, i mean, we have -- just because virgin atlantic is a lot better airline across the atlantic than any other airline flying, when we started 25 years ago, there were 11 other u.s. carriers competing with us, pan-am, twa, air florida, people's express, all 11 of

those carriers went bankrupt. virgin atlantic survived because we offered the best quality product across the atlantic, but to be perfectly honest i cannot guarantee virgin atlantic's survival if b.a. and a.a. are allowed to merge. it will be like competing with our hands tied behind our back, our legs bound up, and it will be very, very difficult. >> tell us about your plans to operate the newest wide-body jetliner, airbus a-380, what markets will the 3 yet serve? will this aircraft be a formidable competitor to the british airways and american airline fleet? >> well, we will operate the a-380 on the longer routes, routes like tokyo, hong kong,

australia, los angeles, new york, and it's a great plane and we're actually at the moment talking to airbus to try to persuade them to lengthen it because i think the economics of the plane will be outstandingly good if they can have a double-decker. thank you. >> one of our members of the audience says he avoids heathrow because of high taxes and fees and congestion and suggestions that why not move virgin's hub to another nearby airport. >> well, the only other airport nearby is gatwick and we do have some flights out of there. the problem is the economics at gatwick are not as good as

heathrow and the majority of people who fly to and from the uk, the business community in particular insist on flying out of heathrow. if you fly on virgin atlantic, we have our own drive-through check in service and we can get you into our lounge in about four minutes from the time our limousine drops you off at heathrow. and so if you haven't flown virgin atlantic, give us a try and hopefully we'll win you over to heath row. thank you. >> of all the countries where virgin does air transport, which country has the most restrictive laws and regulations?. >> airline industry is a strange industry in that there are still restrictions in -- on a global basis and we have urged for years that why should the

airline industry be any different from any other industry? but america has a lot of rerestrictions but in fairness, most countries around the world have a lot of restrictions when it comes to the airline industry. >> you mentioned some of your innovative ideas like the seat back movies and all those sort of things. who thinks these things up? are they in a room somewhere with chocolate and beer and then how do you implement them? >> all the good ideas thought up by myself and -- [laughter] -- and all the bad ideas thought up by people who have left the company a long time ago. [laughter] >> which airlines do you think will survive and which ones will fail? >> well, it slightly depends on whether the -- whether there is

an equal playing field, and as long as competition authorities create a level playing field, then i think that the better, smaller airlines will survive and grow. i mean, if you take america, southwest was once a small, very good airline, it survived and has grown because of its innovation. jetblue has survived and grown because of its innovation. virgin america will survive and grow because of its innovation and because it's the best domestic airline in the state. and i think that there's a possibility that there will be casualties amongst one or two of the big carriers. so there should be. the old trees die, old people

die, they leave room for new young innovative sap links to bring competition and bring lower fairtion and be innovative. that is -- that's positive for any industry.. >> speaking of virgin america, how much money would unwilling to invest in it before pulling out of the market? >> i don't believe that -- virgin america is a company which i am only a small shareholder in. i have no direct involvement but as far as i'm concerned it's doing well and i think it will go on to doing great things.

>> again i recommend you fly it. >> do you expect to see a u.s. government takeover of airline carriers as we're seeing in the auto industry? >> i think it would be the biggest mistake ever if the u.s. government intervened to rescue airline carriers. if one of the billing carriers went to the wall i think it would be a good thing, leaving room, as i said for the smaller, more efficient carriers to step into their shoes and offer better products and better quality, lower fares and so this is one industry that i pray the american government does not go and waste taxpayer money trying

to bail out airlines. there's plenty of entrepreneurs who are willing to step into the shoes of airlines that run into trouble. >> what do you think of the u.s. decision to cancel the plan to auction slots they three new york air ports? >> i hadn't heard of it and if it's true, i think it sounds like a dreadful mistake. j.f.k. is full, that's very convenient for those people who are flying and have slots at j.f.k. the only chance for other carriers to get in there is for slots to be auctioned so i'm not sure who comes up with these ideas sometimes. >> aviation safety is in the news this week as the national transportation safety board investigates the crash in buffalo, new york. do you think the issues that have come to light, including pilot pay, training and commutes

need action from the airline need action from the airline industry? >> well, look, obviously, if there's an incident airlines and the f.a.a. -- thank you very much -- airlines and the f.a.a. need to look at every single incident to see what lessons can be learned from them. i think fully the most domestic airlines, most international airlines are extremely well run, at virgin we are proud of the fact that we have run an airline for 25 years without incident and i think you ought to be able to run airlines, unless you have

extremely bad luck, without incident. as the safest form of air travel today. >> what do you think contributes most to your clean record? >> which clean record are we talking about! [laughter] >> the safety one. [laughter] >> i haven't looked at the other ones. >> now, look, obviously i think the most important thing, if you run an airline, you talk -- one talks about competition, one talks about customer service, obviously the most thing running an airline is safety and people have to be absolutely sure when they get onboard an airline that airline has an impeccable safety record so we pride ourselves on making sure that we have the best pilots with the longest -- lot of experience before they fly for virgin.

and the best engineers. we can go down to having names for each of our planes and i mean that sounds, what's the point of having a name for a plane but the engineers know that scarlet lady, you know, maybe had a teething problem last week or the maiden voyager needs -- i don't know, whatever, but you human nice the plane and i think that's even good when you comes down to engineering practices. >> what is your near-taerm and long-term outlook on oil prices? >> oil prices should not be at $60. personally i believe the market is being manipulated, obviously we know that opec has a cartel that quite openly minupulates the market and it's incredible the western governments don't

have a body to stand up against opec. it's one of the biggest cartels in the world and it's there to drive up prices for all of us consumers in the west, yet there's very little done about it. but i also think oil prices are being manipulated in the market and that i would say that governments need to investigate why are oil prices at $60 today when they should logically be at 25 or 30 dollars maximum. oil is a wash in boats that are sitting around the world, it is -- demand has dropped. what is going on? are governments -- are governments of oil-producing countries buying positions from wall street to try to create a

false market? i mean, it's just -- it certainly needs investigating. anyway, that's the short term. longer term, i think oil will go back, will go up, it's likely to in a normal marketplace it should steady at $70, something like that, and i think the world needs to realize that we are running out of oil. come 2016 and 2017 demand will exceed supply and therefore those people pushing for alternative fuels need to move as quickly as possible to get those alternative fuels, governments need to realize the cleanest fuel, safest fuel if you look statistically, is

nuclear energy, and i think try to emulate what's happened in france. we need to -- we need to try to produce as many nuclear power stations as possible. particularly if we want to combat global warming, is really one of the only weapons we have to try to combat global warming, but if we don't move quickly, i think we could see oil creating the sort of second recession just as this recession starts coming out again by oil prices soaring to levels that will -- which would tip the world into another recession. >> does your advocacy of environmental issues and alternative airline fuels and carbon trading make virgin

atlantic less competitive and why aren't your competitors following your lead? >> well, i don't necessarily think it makes us less competitive. what we're saying is all profits we make from our dirty businesses will be vested in trying to develop clean fuel and oy mentioned earlier one of the companies we're involved in, givo has developed a fuel and the exciting thing about is it it can be made from sugar, the world is awash with sugar, it's bad for you, it creates diabetes, and you know, it is -- and therefore turning that into fuel is a good thing. and the good thing, unlike ethanol, which is that it

doesn't freeze at 15,000 feet, it works fine at 35,000 feet and if you're in a jetliner it's quite good to have a fuel that doesn't freeze at 15,000 feet! [laughter] and it works. so investing profits from our airlines into trying to develop clean fuels like that shouldn't put us at a disadvantage because obviously we hope those fuels themselves will become profitable businesses in themselves. and therefore ultimately the virgin group will be as strong as it is today. i think that why are other airlines not doing more in this area? i mean, i've been fortunate, i've had time meeting people like al gore, i just read james

lovelock, an absolutely brilliant scientist and essential reading for everybody, i think, tim flannery's book, ray a lot about global warming and i'm not sure whether it's too late, but we have got to move extremely quickly, i think to save this beautiful world that we have got for our children and grandchildren. so we will keep working on it. >> how quickly could some of these alternative fuels come online and what's the outlook for alternative fuels, things we haven't even thought of, for the next decade? >> i sort of answered part of that question but i think that the -- i think that the alternative, there's some alternative fuels that could be used right away. if america were not trying to protect its farmers, and i think

mistakingly so, who produce corn-based ethanol, and effectively making it prohibitively expensive for sugar-based ethanol to be brought in from brazil, most of your cars in america could be run today up to 85% of all cars -- every individual car could be run on a very clean sugar-based ethanol from places like brazil and the caribbean. and the corn-based farmers could mix in their fuel as well, and i don't think they would actually suffer too much from that because i think the ethanol market needs to just grow. things like isobutynol may be two or three years off and in order to create enough of that

large refineries are going to have to be built so it will take time to really maximize the amount or the amount of fuel but hopefully within five to ten years there should be enough to look after -- definitely it's on the virgin atlantic fleet and hopefully quite a few other fleets as well. >> okay. moving on to rail travel. given your experience with rail in europe, how do you few the attempt by president barack obama to establish high-speed passenger rail in the u.s.? what does he need to do to succeed and would you invest? >> well, the british government was brave enough to privatize the rail networks in the u.k. about ten years ago and we have stepped in to take over the west coast main line which is really the biggest line in the u.k. and

we have doubled the number of passengers traveling on that line from, i think, very rough figures something like 15 million per year to 30 million per year. that's since taking it over. the way we've done that is by introducing high-speed trains, the advantage of high speed trains is not only do they go quicker for the individual who is on that particular train, but it means that we can get many more trains on to the track and so, for instance, if you are going from london to manchester you can travel by train every 20 minutes and the trains are capable of even more and we hope we can get that down to every 15 minutes. and now we've got full internet use and you never get cut off on your phone, basically why would nobody consider getting on a plane or getting in a car?

so it's been a tremendous, tremendous success story and something which we're one of the things we're most proud of making a real difference in the u.k. on. if invited, you know, we'd be delighted to come and use the energy that we expended in the u. k looking at the american train network and see if we couldn't do the same here and i'm sure that there are certain routes that would make a lot of sense. then i think it's extremely good that obama is thinking about trains because they are a lot more environmentally friendly than planes and cars and it's really a delightful way of traveling. >> can you tell us the current status of your venture on affordable space travel and do you think virgin will apply to the moon in your lifetime?

>> i hope so. where are we? extremely exciting, spaceshipone flew proved that a reuseable space ship could be built and run by a commercial company and so we have been building the mothership to take space ship 2 into space, and the mothership evi is now finished and flying, beautiful-looking, beautiful-looking craft, named after my mother, of course, it's beautiful. and therefore the craft that is now capable of taking this space shift up to 60,000 feet is ready to do its job, the space ship will be finished for its first test at the end of this year and

the rockets are firing well and have been properly tested. by the end of this year we'll go through extensive tests, it may last 18 months, and then at the end of that 18 months, myself and my children and my parents, the again news designer of all this, will go into space. tremendously exciting. new mexico is building a spaceport for us in the desert there. that is going to be incredible. it's the birth of i think a whole new era of space travel. very entirment tally friendly. the cost of us putting somebody in space will be less than flying to london and back on a commercial plane, so massive difference to the environmental

cost of, say, a nasa space ship going into space. we'll also be able to put satellites into space at a fraction of the price that satellites currently go into space for. so exciting days. now, whether we'll ever go to the moon, i think we'll just give the moon a miss and go straight to mars. thank you. [laughter] >> we are almost out of time but before asking the last question we have some important matters to take care of. first of all, let me remind our members of future speakers. tomorrow john roe, chairman and ceo of exxon will discussion national energy policy in a time of economic uncertain. on may 21, ray lahood will discuss his eighth's involvement in president obama's $787 billion economic stimulus package aimed at turning around the u.s. economy.

on may 28 mary tyler moore, actress and international chairman for the juvenile diabetes research foundation, will discuss research and finding a cure for diabetes. second, i would like to present mr. branson with the traditional npc mug. >> thank you very much. >> okay. for our last question, let's see, so someone is asking in this time of economic uncertainty, what do you look for in individuals to hire. [laughter] >> stay away from from business people. i think the key to, if we are taking on managers at virgin, what we look for is people who are great motivators of people, people who look for the best in people, people who praise and

don't criticize, and if you can find those kinds of people, you have a happy company. and do we look for entrepreneurs? i don't believe in competition and so we don't look for them. [laughter] thanks very much. >> thank you very much for coming today. [applause] i'd like to thank you all for coming and also like to thank national press club staff members melinda cook, pat nelson, joanne booth and howard rossman for organizing the lunch and also to the npc library for its research. video archive of today's luncheon is provided by the national press club's broadcast operation center. our events are available for free download on itunes as well as o