Indigo Partners has confirmed it will submit a binding bid for Virgin Australia Holdings and will do so together with the Los Angeles-based alternative investment firm Oaktree Capital Management as well as a probable Australian partner.

As previously reported, Indigo is one of four private equity firms that Virgin Australia administrators have shortlisted, a source close to the matter told Reuters, the others being Bain Capital, BGH Capital, and Cyrus Capital Partners. However, Virgin Australia (VA, Brisbane International) merely said it had shortlisted “a small number of potential buyers” for the company.

Final bids for Australia’s second-biggest airline, which entered voluntary administration on April 21 owing AUD6.8 billion Australian dollars (USD4.45 billion) to more than 12,000 creditors, should be lodged by June 12. The process to close the transaction with the winning bidder will probably take the sale process into early July.

Phoenix-based private equity firm Indigo Partners already holds a controlling interest in Frontier Airlines and JetSMART and stakes in Volaris and Wizz Air. Its co-founder and managing partner Bill Franke commented this week that such strong interest in Virgin Australia at a time of crisis for the global aviation market shows the continued allure of the Australian domestic market, which is effectively a duopoly between Virgin Australia and Qantas (QF, Sydney Kingsford Smith).

Indigo Partners has not yet decided, however, whether its would-be acquisition should retain its international operations in full or become a low-cost carrier, Reuters reported Franke as saying.

Meanwhile, Virgin Australia continues to resume operations under a revised agreement with the Australian government “to connect essential travellers and critical freight with towns and cities across Australia,” it said in a statement on May 21. A revised schedule, which commenced on May 22 to remain in place until June 11, takes its underwritten capacity from 64 to 76 return services per week.

Key changes include adding 3x weekly frequencies between Adelaide International and Perth International; flights between Brisbane International and Melbourne Tullamarine growing from 1x daily to 2x daily; Brisbane-Mackay growing from 5x weekly to 6x weekly; Brisbane-Cairns from 3x to 4x weekly; and frequencies from Perth to Karratha, Newman, and Port Hedland being upgraded from a Fokker 100 to a B737.