Sir Richard Branson still plans to attend next month’s launch of Virgin America, despite suggestions that the media-loving entrepreneur would be forced to stay away amid renewed sensitivity about overseas involvement in the US airline industry.

Virgin America, a San Francisco-based start-up, provided a lightning rod for the bipartisan opposition in Congress and among US unions to reforming the strict investment laws governing the sector, which this week resurfaced and threatened to undermine the “open skies” treaty agreed in April with the European Union.