As speculated here last month Virgin Blue was today
officially renamed to Virgin Australia at today’s media event at Sydney
Airport, on hand to announce the re-branding was Virgin CEO Richard Branson and Virgin Blue now Virgin Australia’s CEO John Borghetti.
Virgin CEO Richard Branson gives two thumbs up to Virgin Australia
Virgin Australias Airbus A330-200 in the background with the tail of the 737-800 to the right
The Virgin Australia name change is a small part of John
Borghetti’s plan to change the company into a full service airline, below I
have outlined some of the elements of the rebranding that featured at today’s Virgin Australia launch
The first and most obvious change is the name and company
logo, as reported here last month the new Virgin
Australia logo follows the design elements of other Virgin Franchises
around the world with the word Virgin in
red on the tail down the fuselage from the front of the aircraft is the name virgin australia in an all lower case blue/grey
font.
Sir Richard Branson Announcing the new Virgin Australia Brand
Points to take our of the media launch event were:
- One Virgin Australia Brand All Virgin brands in Australia (Virgin Blue, V Australia and Pacific Blue) will be rolled into the Virgin Australia brand by the end of the year, with Virgin Blue brand already operating as Virgin Australia this only leaves V Australia and Pacific Blue
- Velocity Loyalty/Frequent Flyer Program to be revamped by the end of the year with a new name
- Business Class to be expanded to more aircraft and more routes
- Alignment of cabin product across all aircraft
- Sir Richard and John Borghetti believe their cabin product in both Business and Economy will beat Qantas in terms of price and quality
The next most obvious element of the Virgin Australia re-branding is Virgin Australians’ new Aircraft with the inclusion of a business
class cabin.
Virgin Australia
Boeing 737-800
The first aircraft to taxi over to the media event was the new Virgin Australia
Boeing 737-800 named Bondi Beach this aircraft is the latest generation 737-800
that has 176 seats in total with 168 seats in Economy class that are laid out
in a 3-3 seating configuration and at the front of the aircraft is Virgin Australia’s 737-800
Business Class seats that will initially operate as Premium Economy the 8
seats in Premium Economy that are laid out in a 2-2 seating config, I was told
that this aircraft will go into service tonight so anyone lucky enough to be
flying Premium Economy on this aircraft will actually be sitting in what will
be a Business Seat.
It should be noted that this aircraft does not have any in-seat inflight entertainment systems installed at present, these will be added in the future, for tonight first flight passengers will have access to portable IFE units.
The Virgin Australia Boeing 737-800 Business Class Seats (these will initially operate as Premium Economy)
Virgin Australia Airbus
A330-200
Carrying Richard Branson the second aircraft to taxi in was the Virgin
Australia Airbus A330-200 named Cable Beach this aircraft won’t go into service until Virgin
Australias’ first domestic Business Class goes live on the Sydney to Perth route
from 26 May 2011.
This aircraft has a total of 278 seats with 251 seats in
Economy Class laid out in a 2-4-2 seating configuration at the front of the
aircraft in business is 27 seats in four rows laid out in a 2-2-2 seating
configuration on the first row and 2-3-2 in the remaining 3 business class rows,
all seats feature in the aircraft feature seat back multi-channel in-flight
entertainment systems. On the topic of the center seat in Business I was able
to reconfirm with the product manager that going forward all future Airbus
A330-200 aircraft feature a 2-2-2 seating config.
Virgin Australia Airbus A330-200 Business Class seat
The Inflight Entertainment Systems in Business Class on the Airbus A330-200
Business Class seat fully reclined in the Airbus A330-200
Virgin Australia A330-200 Economy Class Cabin
Menu Upgrade from Luke
Mangan
On display in Business Class on Virgin Australias Airbus A330-200 was a
sample Business class menu from Luke Managan, it looked good
The new Virgin Australia Business Class Gourmet meals from Luke Mangan
Virgin Australia Crew
Uniform
Originally revealed back in February these highly fashionable pieces have a
close resemblance to the uniform of Virgin Atlantic, and we must say they are a
huge improvement over the old uniform
Further expansion of
Business Class on other routes
I put the question to the media staff on hand at the event in regard to the
expansion of Virgin Australia Business Class onto other routes and was told
that there were plans in the pipe line but they could not comment any further.
In-flight
internet connectivity
Unfortunately Virgin Australia’s inflight
internet services is still being worked and it was re-confirmed at today’s
launch that we can expect something in the future (hopefully next year)
More Virgin Australia Launch photographs can be seen here also see the new Virgin Australia TV Commercial &
Virgin Australia Business Class Airbus A330-200 Cabin Overview
