Word: branson
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...West Hollywood sun is beating down on the patio, a cold wind is blowing through, and Richard Branson is hosting a long lunch poolside at the Sunset Marquis hotel. "It's an old rock-'n'-roll hotel, which has--it's gone out of fashion a little bit, I think," he says. The Rolling Stones and U2 are regulars; Courtney Love wrote a love letter to Kurt Cobain in one of the suites. It's exactly the setting you would expect from the self-styled "rebel billionaire," the man who signed the Sex Pistols and the Stones to Virgin Records...
Then he stops himself, having noticed the looks from the guys gathered around the table. They aren't rock stars; they're airline executives who work in outposts of the Virgin empire--San Francisco, Geneva and Brisbane--and they've heard this story before. Rather than bore them, Branson spends the next couple of hours dishing with his crew. Whose airport lounge can passengers use in San Francisco? (Alaska Airlines.) Is anyone making money flying direct to India? (American is, Chicago--New Delhi.) Which U.S. carrier will fall next? (ATA shuts days later.) We all gossip a bit about...
...champagne? No starlets? Don't worry; he'll get to them later. Right now, Branson is just enjoying his role as pilot of what he calls the world's first truly global airline, one that serves as a signpost to where the battered U.S. airline industry must head: scaled back, smarter, more global and perhaps even profitable. With just 122 planes, 13,600 employees and about $5 billion in revenue last year, all the Virgin airlines put together--Branson's Virgin Group has stakes in Virgin Atlantic, Virgin America, V Australia and Virgin Blue in Australia and Virgin Nigeria...
...Branson and his team actually seem to have hope for air travel in the U.S., where poor service and perpetual bankruptcies have turned the industry into a sick national joke. Customer complaints soared 60% last year, a number that will surely get a boost from the 300,000 passengers who endured the abrupt cancellation in early April of nearly 3,300 American Airlines flights for inspections; there may be more at other airlines this summer. Crushed by high fuel prices, four airlines have declared bankruptcy since March...
...Branson does not accept that idea. Virgin, he says, can succeed where discount and traditional carriers have failed, by offering something different: a hybrid that delivers good service at a reasonable price and eliminates the hub-and-spoke approach that creates mayhem whenever the weather sours. He has convinced his investors, who have so far put $312 million in capital into Virgin America, that this model can work in the U.S. "We're going to shake up the market," he says. Branson expects Virgin America to be profitable within two years. He has done this before: both his British...