Wirraway
20th Jun 2003, 00:02
Thurs "Australian Financial Review"
Virgin in a new Blue with air lounge rivals
Ben Sandilands
Virgin Blue has taken competition with Qantas to a new level with its Blue Room airport lounges.
The new Brisbane Blue Room is about to be followed by the Sydney and Melbourne versions. Canberra and one other city will get theirs before December.
Like the air-fare rivalry between the two carriers, this contest is all about dollars and style.
The Blue Rooms are smaller - yet not always cheaper to use - than the Qantas Clubs found in domestic terminals. And they are very different.
Will Qantas ever offer $1 a minute massages (from the deltoids up) or boy-racer arcade machines? Probably not.
But Qantas might have to offer haircuts to keep ahead, and may even be forced by tougher times to think about charging (as does the Blue Room) for the drinks and brasserie-style meals the club serves.
Virgin Blue's Lounge Project manager, Susy Goldner, says: "Hair stylists could be a first in Australian lounges. They will first appear in Melbourne, and will help the image-conscious, time-poor traveller look a million dollars in no time."
Goldner regards creature comforts, such as massages, as at least as important as messaging, as travellers increasingly use their own phones (enabled with email, SMS and internet access) to keep in touch, rather than plugging in to lounge data points.
But her project has all the hallmarks of the classic Virgin brand strategy of casting itself as street-smart, irreverent and anti-establishment.
That is why Virgin Atlantic customers can be seen racing through the traffic to Heathrow, riding pillion on bright crimson Virgin Bikes driven by "angels" or "demons" in tight leather, while BA's best customers make a stately progression in their Bentleys.
In the Virgin school of marketing, BA is for people with old money while its aircraft are for those intent on taking it off them and turning it into new money.
According to corporate travel managers, the Blue Rooms may not be able to compete with the ubiquity of Qantas Clubs, but they will make many businesses think more carefully about costs.
It costs individuals, without a corporate account discount, $614.24 to join the Qantas Club in the first year (including a one-off fee of $82.50 to join the Qantas Frequent Flyers scheme.) After that, individuals pay $317.24 for an annual renewal.
A Blue Room passport costs $195 a year, with no word yet as to whether its frequent flyer program will be included when it is launched.
The Rex Lounge (Sydney and Canberra) offered by Regional Express costs $220 a year plus $27.50 for the optional Rex Flyer scheme to get one free flight for every nine paid flights.
A reciprocal membership deal is tipped to accompany the new interline agreement linking the Rex and Virgin Blue networks.
If you use a Qantas Club twice a working week at each end of an intercity flight, and it's your money, $317.24 divided by (say) 45 weeks comes to $7.05. You will easily eat and drink that and be well ahead.
On Virgin Blue - at $4.34 a visit plus the cost of any food, beverage and massaging - you'll probably spend more than at Qantas.
Our high-frequency road warrior using the Rex lounge in both Sydney and Canberra would pay $4.89 a visit, with food and drinks for free, and get the best monetary deal of all three examples.
But few people fly that much.
Do the sums for a monthly mission and the Qantas Club comes to $52.88 per return flight, Virgin Blue at least $32.50 and REX $36.68.
Unlike its rivals, Virgin Blue sells single visits to its Blue Room for $5, even if you're flying Qantas.
The manager of the Brisbane room let Qantas chief executive Geoff Dixon in for free when it first opened, causing Virgin Blue CEO Brett Godfrey to email him asking for the $5.
However, the managing director of business travel consultancy Travelsearch, Carole Murphy, says a review of some corporate accounts shows there is an extra cost to the Qantas Club memberships that are sometimes "given away" to eligible staff.
"It makes executives feel that they have to use Qantas to take advantage of the club facilities, even if they are only there for 10 minutes.
"Travelsearch has found that, over a period of months, this has seen companies paying $80 to $100 more per sector to fly than if they had taken advantage of the cheapest practicable Virgin Blue fare," she says.
For international business travellers, admission is free (with premium fare tickets or top-tier frequent flyer memberships) to the Qantas/Oneworld complex, with seating for 800, at Sydney International or in lesser palaces throughout the world.
Similar "privileges" are accorded to more valuable customers flying on other international carriers, notably those in the Star Alliance.
On the most frequently flown routes out of Australia, the important lounges are those of British Airways in London, the two Cathay Pacific lounges of The Wing and The Pier in Hong Kong, the gold-plated spas of the Malaysia Airlines extravaganza at Kuala Lumpur, the Emirates fantasy in Dubai, and the ANA and Japan Air first-class, zen-meets-Lalique lounges in Tokyo.
It is fair to say that Singapore Airlines' lounges at Changi need upgrading, but just wait until it reveals the facilities in the all-new terminal being built to handle the giant Airbus A380 in 2006.
For those who pine for a return of the extravagant Abeles era at Ansett, it may or may not be a comfort to find that the Blue Room about to open at the former Ansett terminal in Sydney occupies the once secret and sacred ground of the invitation-only Executive Lounge.
===========================================
Pic: Virgin blue 737-700 VH-VBH
http://www.jetphotos.net/viewphoto.php?id=86303
Photo: Wirraway
===========================================
Virgin in a new Blue with air lounge rivals
Ben Sandilands
Virgin Blue has taken competition with Qantas to a new level with its Blue Room airport lounges.
The new Brisbane Blue Room is about to be followed by the Sydney and Melbourne versions. Canberra and one other city will get theirs before December.
Like the air-fare rivalry between the two carriers, this contest is all about dollars and style.
The Blue Rooms are smaller - yet not always cheaper to use - than the Qantas Clubs found in domestic terminals. And they are very different.
Will Qantas ever offer $1 a minute massages (from the deltoids up) or boy-racer arcade machines? Probably not.
But Qantas might have to offer haircuts to keep ahead, and may even be forced by tougher times to think about charging (as does the Blue Room) for the drinks and brasserie-style meals the club serves.
Virgin Blue's Lounge Project manager, Susy Goldner, says: "Hair stylists could be a first in Australian lounges. They will first appear in Melbourne, and will help the image-conscious, time-poor traveller look a million dollars in no time."
Goldner regards creature comforts, such as massages, as at least as important as messaging, as travellers increasingly use their own phones (enabled with email, SMS and internet access) to keep in touch, rather than plugging in to lounge data points.
But her project has all the hallmarks of the classic Virgin brand strategy of casting itself as street-smart, irreverent and anti-establishment.
That is why Virgin Atlantic customers can be seen racing through the traffic to Heathrow, riding pillion on bright crimson Virgin Bikes driven by "angels" or "demons" in tight leather, while BA's best customers make a stately progression in their Bentleys.
In the Virgin school of marketing, BA is for people with old money while its aircraft are for those intent on taking it off them and turning it into new money.
According to corporate travel managers, the Blue Rooms may not be able to compete with the ubiquity of Qantas Clubs, but they will make many businesses think more carefully about costs.
It costs individuals, without a corporate account discount, $614.24 to join the Qantas Club in the first year (including a one-off fee of $82.50 to join the Qantas Frequent Flyers scheme.) After that, individuals pay $317.24 for an annual renewal.
A Blue Room passport costs $195 a year, with no word yet as to whether its frequent flyer program will be included when it is launched.
The Rex Lounge (Sydney and Canberra) offered by Regional Express costs $220 a year plus $27.50 for the optional Rex Flyer scheme to get one free flight for every nine paid flights.
A reciprocal membership deal is tipped to accompany the new interline agreement linking the Rex and Virgin Blue networks.
If you use a Qantas Club twice a working week at each end of an intercity flight, and it's your money, $317.24 divided by (say) 45 weeks comes to $7.05. You will easily eat and drink that and be well ahead.
On Virgin Blue - at $4.34 a visit plus the cost of any food, beverage and massaging - you'll probably spend more than at Qantas.
Our high-frequency road warrior using the Rex lounge in both Sydney and Canberra would pay $4.89 a visit, with food and drinks for free, and get the best monetary deal of all three examples.
But few people fly that much.
Do the sums for a monthly mission and the Qantas Club comes to $52.88 per return flight, Virgin Blue at least $32.50 and REX $36.68.
Unlike its rivals, Virgin Blue sells single visits to its Blue Room for $5, even if you're flying Qantas.
The manager of the Brisbane room let Qantas chief executive Geoff Dixon in for free when it first opened, causing Virgin Blue CEO Brett Godfrey to email him asking for the $5.
However, the managing director of business travel consultancy Travelsearch, Carole Murphy, says a review of some corporate accounts shows there is an extra cost to the Qantas Club memberships that are sometimes "given away" to eligible staff.
"It makes executives feel that they have to use Qantas to take advantage of the club facilities, even if they are only there for 10 minutes.
"Travelsearch has found that, over a period of months, this has seen companies paying $80 to $100 more per sector to fly than if they had taken advantage of the cheapest practicable Virgin Blue fare," she says.
For international business travellers, admission is free (with premium fare tickets or top-tier frequent flyer memberships) to the Qantas/Oneworld complex, with seating for 800, at Sydney International or in lesser palaces throughout the world.
Similar "privileges" are accorded to more valuable customers flying on other international carriers, notably those in the Star Alliance.
On the most frequently flown routes out of Australia, the important lounges are those of British Airways in London, the two Cathay Pacific lounges of The Wing and The Pier in Hong Kong, the gold-plated spas of the Malaysia Airlines extravaganza at Kuala Lumpur, the Emirates fantasy in Dubai, and the ANA and Japan Air first-class, zen-meets-Lalique lounges in Tokyo.
It is fair to say that Singapore Airlines' lounges at Changi need upgrading, but just wait until it reveals the facilities in the all-new terminal being built to handle the giant Airbus A380 in 2006.
For those who pine for a return of the extravagant Abeles era at Ansett, it may or may not be a comfort to find that the Blue Room about to open at the former Ansett terminal in Sydney occupies the once secret and sacred ground of the invitation-only Executive Lounge.
===========================================
Pic: Virgin blue 737-700 VH-VBH
http://www.jetphotos.net/viewphoto.php?id=86303
Photo: Wirraway
===========================================