SIR Richard Branson has warned agents to maintain healthy sales of Virgin Atlantic tickets or risk losing their commission.

The Virgin chairman said he was prepared to follow rival British Airways in scrapping commission if there were signs his airline was losing out.

He said: “As long as agents work with us, we will work with them. But we need to see agents are genuinely switch-selling to us and if not we will go down the BA route.”

Virgin continues to offer 7% commission despite other airlines paying lower rates or cutting them altogether.

Sir Richard said he hoped agents were switch-selling away from BA to Virgin but needed strong evidence to safeguard the current method of paying retailers.

He refused to say if Virgin will follow the BA initiative of low-cost tickets for off-peak flights, but added the carrier had plans for some deals.

“We have one or two things up our sleeve and we will be competitive,” said Sir Richard.

Although BA does not offer the low-cost structure on competing long-haul routes, it will be expanded to transatlantic and Far East flights if it proves a success in Europe from this summer, putting more pressure on Virgin.

Sir Richard, who has been invited to speak at this year’s ABTA Convention, said his airline was close to resuming usual business following September 11. He said: “The back end is already back to normal and the front will depend on how the economy goes.”

Virgin has reinstated most of its services, apart from Toronto and Chicago which should be back soon, said Sir Richard. He will be holding talks with Indian officials this week to launch Mumbai services to complement the Delhi operation.

Next month the carrier becomes the launch customer for the Airbus A340-600. The 319-passenger jet will serve the Far East and South Africa.

* Virgin plans to have video-on-demand, e-mail and Internet by the end of the year following BA’s plan to trial a similar system.