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 […]