The big carriers like United, American and US Airways have to be running around like crazy today. Virgin America launched their ticket sales today.
Virgin America will start Aug. 8 with two daily nonstop flights between San Francisco International Airport and New York's John F. Kennedy Airport and five daily nonstop flights between SFO and Los Angeles International Airport.
The SFO-JFK route will put Virgin with some stiff competition from JetBlue to United’s P.S. The SFO-LAX route will also be a tough route. Virgin only plans 5 daily flights between the cities now up against United’s 18 nonstop and 17 connecting flights per day and American’s 8 daily nonstop and countless connecting flights per day.
But service and price has given Virgin America the upper hand. Introductory fares must have United and American pulling out their hair. Introductory fares start under $50 one way from San Francisco to Los Angeles and just under $150 for a first class seat one way. (Which is fully massaging)
How about under $150 one way to Washington D.C. from San Francisco? Or to Las Vegas from San Francisco for under $150 one way. Can not get that on United, which only offers TED service to Las Vegas (no first class, very stupid).
These are only introductory fares but the major carriers have to be worried. First class seats on Virgin America are thousands less than what they are offering.
Virgin America hopes to ramp up service within a few months after launch date. The airline "expects to serve as many as 10 cities within a year of operation and up to 30 cities within five years of service.''
Not only is this launch good for passengers but the economy of San Francisco and the bay area. The airline currently has about 400 staff members but expects to hire between 3,000 and 5,000 employees.
The airline looks to be a hit already. Their site was slow this morning around 7am CST and then unwilling to load between noon and 4pm CST probably due to large network volume. Now I wait for them to add my home town city. My city was one of their top rated markets on their survey on their “where should VA fly” site.
San Francisco Chronicle
Virgin America Website
Read more about
Virgin Airlines,
Caribbean Star Airlines and
Air France.
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Delta should be a lot more worried about Virgin America than US Airways, as 3 out of 6 of VX's preliminary routes overlap. 4 out of 6 overlap with American, and all six overlap on United.
Posted by: Anonymous | July 20, 2007 6:31 PM | Permalink to Comment