I completely agree about the "Little Red" thing. Why take a very well known brand like Virgin and hide it?
It was branded as Virgin Atlantic, if you had googled "Virgin Little Red", you would have found it.
The cabin crew were fine but the product they were forced to serve was pretty poor.
They serve only what the market will support, if you serve more, you add more costs and you become even less competitive, sadly.
There was also no promotion or publicity of these routes.
Not sure that's fair, they did promote it, just ten years too late. These things need a critcal mass when feeding long haul and Sir Beardy and Sir BMI just couldn't come to terms. #egoclashmuch? Hence both operations basically failed slowly over time, Virgin's saviour was Delta and doing what SRB said he would never do in getting all cosy and uncompetitive with
a major competitor. BMI's was Luthansa who just couldn't save the patient
Even more concerning, is the fact VS are now blaming almost everyone else, for these failings.
The main clue is that Virgin Atlantic,Nigeria, America and Australia might as well have been from different planets for all the synergies they had. They failed to take note the market dynamics had changed with alliance membership and even with SQ as a major shareholder were absent from STAR.
VS blamed everyone else, mainly "big bad BA" for years. However, thankfully they have turned a corner now thay're trading under their new name of
Virgin Atlanta.
This new management team is wayyy more savvy. Hello simpler fleet, route network, synergies and US codeshares and cutting edge plastic twinjets. Goodbye A340-600 heavy quads, half arsed domestic gig a decade late too and any thoughts of the A380. Underperforming routes have been ruthlessly dropped in NRT,SYD, YVR, CPT all gone.
Meanwhile SRB was last seen hoisting a kilt up showing some pants at EDI on launch day, a party trick that wore thin when he turned 86 years old. The futures a lot brighter now it has a
Southern Comfort IMHO, a lot of jobs now safer.