Carrying the flag?

[Cruise Alt]

I was driving past Manchester Airport the other day admiring the shiny Virgin 747 in a lovely paint scheme declaing they were carrying Britains Flag and I was dreaming of oneday moving up from a Turbo prop to....

Then there it was. The TF Icelandic registration! Carrying Britain,s flag maybe but carrying British pilots? I dont think so.

Oh well there goes the dream! How many other British carriers are doing the same?

[superspotter]

I think that you will find that one day it is an Air Atlanta crew i.e. any nationality under the sun! and the next day it is a virgin crew, being that the aircraft is ex Virgin. regards clive.

[B737NG]

Are You shure it was in what was printed outside ?
Could be a AirAtlanta 747. They fly for everybody
under the sun as long as they get money for that.
The guys are then from everywhere over the Globe.
So Iceland accepts JAA Licences by the way. So You
have one and dream on.......

[obiukwu]

The aircraft still actually belong to Virgin, but they are no longer on VS AOC hence on a TF reg. Superspotter is right. The FD crew could either be Virgin or Air Atlanta, but the CC are always Virgins!

[doubledolphins]

Here we go again. I made the same point last year. Couple of days ago there were two of them at MAN. Both in full Virgin livery complete with the legend "Britain's Flag Carrier" painted on the side next to the lady with the the flag in her hand. Of course, it could be that now most of the Former World's Favorite's aircraft have a Flag logo on the tail, Branson wants to drop it. Come to think of it look at the nose art again, she is just about to drop it!

[3MTA3]

just for info, the Virgin flights out of Manchester are made by Air Atlanta crews.

[proxus]

So Iceland accepts JAA Licences by the way.

Of course we do, We are after all a JAA member.

Proxus

[PAXboy]

From the moment that BA was de-nationalised, we could not claim to have a flag carrying airline, in the sense that we have known in the past.

Today, many still claim to be flag carriers and many newspapers and broadcasters continue with the mis-nomer of BA as a flag carrier.

Further, since the setup of international aircarft leasing companies, JAA and the acceptance of aircraft ownershp and operation being separated, we move further away from the original use of the term.

Flag carrying is meaningless now and if one carrier wishes to make a point of painting flag images on it's a/c for perceived PR gain - then let them do it.

And 'so what?' say I. It is just PR, nothing more.

[whats_it_doing_now?]

Has anybody else noticed the Virgin A340 at LHR with 'BA can't keep Concorde up!' (or something similar) written on the side?

I find Virgin to be a slightly paradoxical company. They are struggling, but have the benefit of a strong brand and good image, but they consistently let themselves down with some rather tacky slogans plastered on their aircraft, usually taking a swipe at BA. For an airline that is attempting to maintain an image of quality, it seems odd that they revert to decidedly 'no frills' tactics.

[dontdoit]

<<They ... have the benefit of a ... good image>>

Oh no they don't. You've obviously never been on one of their trains or drank some of their "cola", or, IMHO, travelled on one of their flights where the only consistency is inconsistency... any flight back to the UK seems best avoided as my last few experiences would indicate that the crew seemed all "partied out" and couldn't really be bothered with the SLF.

Give me the real Flag Carrier and their truly flat bed any day.

[Shanwick Shanwick]

The Aircraft in question are owned by Virgin but operated on their behalf by Air Atlanta on their AOC. They operate a daily service to Orlando and are flown by Virgin pilots unless training is necessary.

As the service is a summer only route it is not viable to use one of the mainline aircraft to have it standing around in the winter. Having the two aircraft available also adds flexibility to the airline if unexpected routes/slots/charters arise.

[Ringwayman]

As the service is a summer only route

It's 6 weekly in the summer and from this winter 5 weekly (though they've dropped the previously announced proposed weekly Barbados service).