Word: virginal
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...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 and then tried to bring that same swagger and cheek to the airline business at Virgin Atlantic. I ask him about his mother, a stewardess in the glamour days of the 1950s, and Branson launches into a well-worn tale about her blithely crossing the Atlantic on an airline...
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...
...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--are a speck in the eye of the largest U.S. carrier, American, whose 655 planes generated $23 billion in sales...
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...
Experiencing the future as Branson imagines it will cost you less than $300, the price of a bare-bones economy ticket between Los Angeles and New York City on one of Virgin America's 149-seat A320s. The planes are new, and the leather seats are comfortable enough for sleeping, even in coach. There are power outlets at every seat. The most profound change, though, doesn't look like much of an improvement at first. Like many U.S. carriers, Virgin America charges for food in economy class. But flight attendants don't dole it out from a cart like gruel...