Good evening everyone. This week’s issue of PlaneBusiness Banter is now posted.

This week we talk a bit about the newly-approved Delta Air Lines/Virgin Atlantic JV. The two airlines begin codesharing next week. We’re now officially also taking bets on how long it will be before the “Virgin” brand is more or less “melded” into the Delta brand.

As I’ve mentioned before, feedback from my corporate business travel groups continue to indicate that the Virgin product is “tired.” I’d say the main reason: lack of money to spend.

One thing’s for sure. Virgin does have nice slots at Heathrow.

In other news, we’ve been monitoring the operational performance of the major players this month — to see how they are coping with the busy summer season. Last year United Airlines fell down on the job. This year — American Airlines is turning in abysmal operational performance numbers.

This week we also wade through what was an incredibly overflowing group of feedback letters from last week. Subscribers are talking about everything from missing United Airlines‘ fight attendant uniforms (what happened to the COOL blue dress?) to the TWA 800 documentary to visual proof that the new American livery definitely looks even worse on an A319.

The Paris Air Show also wrapped up last week. We’ll have the final testosterone tallies for you from there as well.

All this and more in this week’s issue of PlaneBusiness Banter.