Word: virginal
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...soared, fueling inflation. Business leaders across the world are also watching nervously for signs of a protectionist blast from the new Democratic-majority Congress in Washington. Isolated cases of protectionism abound on both sides of the Atlantic: in December, the U.S. Department of Transportation turned down an application by Virgin America, a start-up airline partly owned by British billionaire Richard Branson, to begin domestic U.S. flights because of the carrier's foreign ownership. In Europe, meanwhile, the French government proudly touts its doctrine of "economic patriotism" and has tried, with mixed success, to engineer domestic mergers in the drugs...
Like most other airlines, Virgin America is eager to extol the virtues of its jets. A snack-packed minibar at the rear of the cabin. Personal TVs that let you order dinner and share MP3 playlists with other passengers. Mood lighting, tinted windows, music in the bathroom. And, of course, Virgin-branded edginess. "Instead of 'boarding process,' how about 'getting on the plane'?" asks CEO Fred Reid. "How revolutionary is that...
...difference is that Virgin America isn't trying to sell you a ticket--there are none to sell--but to get you to write Congress and demand that the carrier be allowed...
...more than a year, Virgin America's application at the Department of Transportation (DOT) has been enmeshed in a cantankerous debate about who, exactly, controls the airline. Richard Branson, the British entrepreneur who has plastered the Virgin logo on everything from record stores to cell phones, longed to start a U.S. branch of his renegade Virgin airlines but was kept out of the market by a law that says foreigners can't own more than 25% of a U.S.-based carrier. Nor can they run the show from behind the scenes...
...agreed this past December and tentatively rejected Virgin America's application on the grounds that the use of the resources of the British umbrella-company Virgin Group--to develop a business plan, buy planes and solicit U.S. investors--didn't sufficiently recede when U.S. executives took over, and that there are still examples, including the licensing agreement to use the Virgin brand, of foreigners holding too much sway...