Virgin Australia: When will it commence?

[Al E. Vator]

Richard Branson has said that Virgin Atlantic will commence an Australian-based airline operating Trans Pacific to LAX, SFO etc (and originally said this would begin ops before Christmas).

You can say many things about the man, but usually if he says he will do something, he does.

Anybody have any idea as to what is the latest?

[sinala1]

Rumour has it the A340's are already on the way... again RUMOUR only, but apparently been confirmed by the DJ Chief Pilot

:confused:

I will believe it when I see it...

[OZcabincrew]

hopefully it's better than Virgin Blue!

Just think, jokes and immature crew in your face from SYD to LAX!!!!!

[Al E. Vator]

Er...um...well that was one of the reasons I was asking.

Don't like Qantas, don't like United.

Whilst they're not Dumb and Dumber they are:

Grumpy and Grumpier,
Frumpy and Frumpier, etc.

Would like to see some real service-oriented airline rather than the incumbent two that barely tolerate their customers at present.

As far as this SLF goes, jokes beat the old 'mature' miseryguts anyday.

[Taildragger67]

Service on VS?

Certainly not in the bits of the plane where the punters are paying for it themselves.

Admittedly, I've only done two returns LGW-MIA & LHR-JFK with them, but they were equally shocking; from check-in to bye-bye.

IF you can fit into what must be the tightest seats over the Atlantic, the 'service' you get will be average, at best.

No reflection on the techies or the cabin crew themselves; I just don't think (from my experience) that the service culture is there in zones B-E. More like 'all the glam people are up front and I'm stuck down here with the Gatwick South shell-suit crowd'.

[Tom Sawyer]

Taildragger, you must have some pretty high standards. In the latest Zagat survey VS were 3rd overall for comfort, service, food and website, behind SQ and CX with EK 4th. VS were in the top 5 of all the above catergories and it does cover both ends of the cabin. Generally it seems that most awards these days are shared between SQ, EK and VS with CX starting to make a showing. Never flown with SQ personally but hardly heard a bad story about them, flown the others and they certainly seem to have something good going on against most other airlines.
Certainly if VS started SYD - USA they would knock out United and give QF a good run, why do you think QF have suddenly up'd their advertsing since VS got on the Kangaroo route, could be just getting the defenses in before it happens.

[OhForSure]

Perhaps Branson should worry about getting DJs profits back on track first... oh yeah and might as well improve Atlantic's loads on the LHR-HKG-SYD flights too - apparently they're doing ****house.

[HI'er]

It's always reassuring to get advice from successful entrepeneurs such as OhForSure, who is probably stretched balancing his monthly housekeeping!

[MarkD]

Simon Harford, startup CEO of Virgin Nigeria, is leaving VK so either he's got a P45 or else Bearded One has another airline for him to start...

[wirgin blew]

When is Virgin USA supposed to start and arent they going to be based in San Fran?

Maybe once they have the USA sorted out they might start with the SYD-SFO or LAX.

Seems like Virgin is slowly taking over the world.

[alangirvan]

The story as to whether Virgin, Singapore Airlines or Emirates will fly to America would go away if United got their act together and made themselves an airline which people would choose to use.


United does add flights between SYDSFO and SYDLAX - over the Australian summer, so that is 10 weekly flights on each route.

They must be getting the passengers from somewhere, and UA offers better connections to internal US cities than SQ or EK could ever hope to offer.

If UA did offer twice daily year round, and Qantas continues to offer its current schedule there will be plenty of seats on the route. UA can do a make over of their inflight service, and they should still get the Business Travellers from the American end of the route.

[relax737]

OzCabin Crew, at least if they were flying to the west coast of the US, they may not make jokes about BrisVegas; they'd have the genuine article, Las Vegas to heap some $hit on toward the endi of the journey.

I recently spoke with a Pacific B;lue pilot who said he was embarrassed to be part of the show because silly little girls get ont he PA and say the dumbest things.

I wouldn't fly with them either.

[Defenestrator]

Planejobs.com has just recently advertised for several managerial positions for "Virgin America". For all means and purposes looks like they are getting themselves prepared to launch a new product over there.

[sinala1]

Rumblings around are that an announcement is imminent...

[wirgin blew]

www.virginamerica.com/ (http://www.virginamerica.com/)

Taking off in 2006.

Any businessperson would be desperately trying to push cabinet into getting VB across the Pacific to link up.

Doesnt QF make 15% of its revenue from that route???