satpak77

So what will happen to Virgin America ? Brand and livery ceased ?

Or is Alaska going to keep things unchanged

Wynncore

The Virgin brand will be retired by 2019. There are several news articles discussing this topic.

GreatBigSea

Here ya go

Cheers

satpak77

thank you....

Ispeakjive

It seems that Alaska has done some "market studies" and have found that the Alaska brand resonates better than the Virgin brand. Never in the history of derping have so few derped so hard upon so many.
Sad thing is that AAG believes it.

OCCP

*Market studies conducted in Seattle, anchorage, and Portland

cmrflyer

Where? Never heard of these places.

BiloxiJack

Getting rid of Virgin is a preposterously stupid move if the goal is growth, which we are all finding it really isn't.. pretty easy to see through the rah rah Alaska propaganda spun by Pyongyang, I mean Seattle.

Outside of the West Coast, most are completely unfamiliar with Alaska. In fact most people when they first find out where I work, think I fly in the "bush" in Alaska.. and my city has a daily round trip on AS, zero flights on virgin America.. guess which airline people in my city know. Getting rid of one of the most recognizable and exciting brands in the world is a mistake... well unless of course your goal continues to be a regional airline posing as a major that flies 737s to shuttle people from Seattle to other America.

The ego of this place is constantly troubling. I don't fear losing pilot jobs due to higher wages in the JCBA... I fear losing pilot jobs when we lose a vast majority of the virgin America following because Alaska was too arrogant to keep some of their features and incorporate their name in someway.

ShyGuy

Serious? I thought most of us were beyond the red KoolAid days. Features and name don't pay our bills, a nice pay raise and good JCBA will. I don't care if they paint a freakin Moose on the tail. Just pay me

The Virgin thing is overrated anyway. Branson's comments on us since the buyout have been nothing short of disappointing and it's clear he only cares about his own image and brand, the rest of us are expendable. And brand recognition didn't help any profits materialize until oil came crashing way down. It's true that Virgin was recognizable on the transcon market, but so was Alaska with its AA codeshare. Searching on Expedia or orbitz for a JfK to LAX flight, and one column would be (example) Alaska flight 6201 with a note that it's operated by AA. The exposure to a degree was already there, it was just codeshared out. Now the same flights will come up in online searches for transcon flights, except it will be AAG metal.

What's the red tail done for the last 5.5 years that was impressive? It stagnated out, stopping all original vision of it being a 100+ airline competing long term with other major airlines. It barely made a profit and only did so when oil came crashing down. At one point end of 2012, I thought I may be furloughed but luckily they didn't have to as they capped credit hrs for bid award in Jan 2013 and put many on reserve to swallow lack of block hours. Our pay has been near rock bottom, if maybe at/above Spirit and Frontier. If you take the emotion out of it these are just facts for at least my 5.5 yrs here. That's why I don't really feel any strong connection to a red tail. Go ahead and paint it over. Fact remains that of all the mergers in the US for the past 20-30 years, no two-names have survived long term. It just isn't efficient or even feasible. And airline-within-airline concepts have been tried and failed. Day one announcement of April 4th on the PDF file they had a box of info and one piece of information on it was: "Post-close corporate structure name: Alaska Airlines". Not sure why anyone would think VX even had a chance, it was fairly obvious and announced from the get-go what they envisioned.

Jetlife

It would have been nice to see Alaska reemerge as something new. Nobody knows who the hell they are anywhere outside the PNW. They are a good company and all, but they are really good at being a regional with some longer flights sprinkled in. It is amazing how you can skew a poll to have it favor anything you want, and that's what they did.

I don't mind flying airplanes with blue and green on the side, but that damn eskimo? Seriously!?