VirginUSA narrows choice

[canyonblue]

Economic development officials in San Mateo County and executives at San Francisco International Airport said Virgin Group has notified them that it will pick the Bay Area, Boston or Virginia for the main office of Virgin USA, a domestic airline expected to begin flying in 2004. Virgin Group told them it will make its final pick in January, local officials said.
Virgin USA's headquarters will employ some 500 people and that numbercould rise to 3,200 by 2006, local officials said. Virgin USA would provide the Bay Area with a new, high-profile enterprise at a time when many local officials bemoan the difficulty of attracting large businesses to the region.
The Bay Area, as one of the finalists for the Virgin USA headquarters, beat out New York City, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia and Los Angeles, which have been eliminated from consideration.
"I'm very pleased," said Mike Nevin, a San Mateo County supervisor who has been involved in discussions to lure Virgin USA to the area. "This would be major for the airport and the economy."
As it has throughout its selection process, Virgin USA did not return calls for comment.
Local economic development officials will present Virgin USA with suggestions on how the airline can market its business, as part of an ongoing effort to lure the company, said Deberah Bringelson, president of Samceda, a San Mateo County business development group.
Virgin Group, the London-based operator of Virgin Atlantic Airways, plans to finance Virgin USA through the sale of a stake in Virgin Blue, an Australian carrier it controls. Virgin Group recently raised more than $158 million by selling a 20 percent stake of Virgin Blue.
Virgin Atlantic has a small presence at SFO now, with a few dozen employees who staff the airline's one daily nonstop flight between San Francisco and London.
Many local officials feared that a recent controversy over a cargo and office space development at SFO might hurt the region's chances of landing Virgin USA. On Dec. 16, San Francisco supervisors rejected plans for a new, two-story cargo and office facility at SFO, citing objections to the bidding process. Virgin USA was attracted to the 120,000 square feet of office space that would have been part of the cargo building construction, said Arthur Gensler, chairman of the architecture firm that prepared drawings for the building.
But the supervisors' rejection apparently didn't dampen Virgin USA's interest in the Bay Area. Virgin notified local officials that the region was still in the running a day after the vote.


I say Bay Area. What, with it's service from all 3 Bay Area Airports

 

[dogg]

Just what we need, another airline dragging down the profession with low fares and low wages.

 

[General Lee]

It is well known that Virgin Atlantic pilots are among the lowest paid widebody pilots on Earth. The morale (according to other websites) is low, and the only nice thing at Virgin is the nice 5 star resorts they stay at on layovers. The flight attendants make close to $11,000 pounds a year, with the pilots making $40-60,000 pounds. I am sure the payrates at the new Virgin America are going to be fairly low----but the expansion will be great. I am sure they will want to hire as many Skywest pilots as they can find......

Bye Bye--General Lee

 

[G4G5]

My bet's on BOS. Branson can support the initial start up costs with the supply of feed from Virgin UK.

It's the only real chioce left with no established LCC. IAD had JetBlue and the newly created Independence Air (ACA). BWI has LUV.

SFO/OAK/SJC all have plenty of LCC's competition

 

[General Lee]

Where will they park the planes at BOS? There is no room, and we are currently building a new terminal (the new "Big dig")---that will take a total of three years to build. I guess they could move into the gates we are now occupying...

Bye Bye--General Lee

 

[jukebox]

General Lee you screwed yourself

Ten years ago all you pompous major pilots looked at the RJ and said we don't want to fly that "Barbie Jet" and you let the regionals go a head and take them. If you would have deflated your oversized ego's back then, we wouldn't have to deal with all this regional BS or Virgin prostitution.

 

[NorskAir]

I guess someone has a chip on their shoulders.

 

[G4G5]

Where will they park the planes at BOS?
Bye Bye--General Lee

Have you seen JetBlue's schedule out of BOS? I know that the southern area by the old signature is now available. What about USAir selling some? Who knows?

My point is it's there if they need it, they can find it. I am sure that the final choice will have as much to do about the airport as it does the gov subsities. He wants to see who will give the most.

Try to keep in mind that their is only a finite amount of passengers. Just because Virgin starts flying it doesn't mean more folks will start flying. All it means is, the ones flying will now change carriers.

What I like about Bos is Branson can fill up an A380 and then he can feed the A320 in Bos and combine it with O&D traffic to the FL market. It opens up a whole set of second tier airports that he can't serve with the current bilateral agreements. It also allows him to fill those big A380's.

LAX is just to far for a person flying from the UK to then get on an A320 to PDX or wherever.

 

[Palerider957]

Isn't there a strict limitation on the amount of foreign ownership of any given airline--something like %35?? Who makes up the remaining percentage of Vigin USA??

I'm sure the "ownership" is probably a paper work only thing with Branson doing all of the capitalization. Where is the Department of Commerce?? First cargo cabbotage, now this...not good.

The VERY last thing we need is more competition from a heavily subsidized, foreign egomaniac like Branson......

With luck the domestic carriers will crush him like a beer can.

 

[AA717driver]

I respect a lot of people on this board and I hope many will forgive me for this but here goes:

With regard to dragging the profession down, I will tell you all what I told a L1011 Capt. shortly after I got hired at TWA. He turned around and said that the reason the airline industry was in such turmoil(this being 1989) was that "people like you" come to work for "places like this" for $20,000 a year.

I stared back at him and told him that "I'll be **CENSORED****CENSORED****CENSORED****CENSORED**ed if I stay at a commuter making $12,000 bucks a year just to improve YOUR life."

(I failed to remind him that it was "his" MEC that signed the agreement with Icahn to pay me $18,000 to start and $40/hr. in my fifth year...)

I hope like hell that Delta keeps their pay up and that we all rise to equal or exceed it but I'll be **CENSORED****CENSORED****CENSORED****CENSORED**ed if I go to work at Home Depot and bypass a class at Virgin to help Delta or anyone else maintain their standard of living.

All I ever hear is that someone is dragging down the profession. Well, it didn't start last week. The "profession" didn't stand up to drug testing or screening crews in the '80's and they didn't shut down the industry to protest Frank Lorenzo stealing Continential's pensions. No one wanted to rock the boat or jeapordize their career.

We are reaping what has been sewn over the past 25 years.

Ty Webb, if you're out there, you are dreaming if you think the top airlines would allow a "guild". The national seniority list idea was floated a couple of decades ago and was shot down by United, Delta and USAir. They were successful at the time and didn't want a 727 Capt. from Eastern or TWA moving ahead of them on the seniority list.

I can't blame them but that line of thinking(I've got mine) has done as much to destroy the profession as Lorenzo, Wolf and Icahn put together.

So, if Sir Richard calls, I'll be the first one in line if they'll let me.TC

 

[46Driver]

I didn't see a whole lot wrong with the post but then again I couldn't see much past your avatar - who is she?

 

[General Lee]

Looks like Nicole Kidman.


I think we at Delta will take a paycut, but we will still have great wages. During bad times it is hard to keep a large Gap between you and the next Major. But, we do want our company to stay around so we can pay our mortgages....


G4G5,

You are right, Jetblue will be flying about 10-12 flights a day from BOS (4 MCO, 3 FLL, 2 TPA, and 1 DEN---I think.....) but that might require 2-3 gates total. If Virgin America has a BASE there, they would need more. I just wonder where they would be----maybe where Delta is now (when they move to their new terminal in 1.5 years....?). That was all that I was wondering...


AA717drvr,

You go for it. Sir Richard seems to have some good ideas, and this may be one of them--even though this may be different than his Virgin Blue experiment with all of the Low Cost competition here. But, if you go in there knowing about the possible low pay, etc.. then good luck.

Bye Bye--General Lee

 

[storminpilot]

“Expanded competition from low-cost carriers continues to drive business fares lower. Continuation of these positive trends will create a “black hole” for the legacy network industry. To paraphrase Pyrrhus, a few more victories like this and the legacy network industry will be lost.”
Michael E. Levine in Airfinance Journal
(2003 Guide edition)

 

[storminpilot]

“Given the rate at which low-cost carriers are expanding, the devastating pricing impact they possess, and network carriers’ myopic refusal to question their own business model, I believe low-cost airlines eventually will inherit the earth.” Jamie Baker, airline analyst for JP Morgan, quoted by Aviation Week and Space Technology, October 20, 2003 at 10

 

[B6Busdriver]

General Lee,
The plan as I understand it is we are suppose to move into your gates once the new Terminal A is complete.

 

[rjcap]

I would be interested in Branson's airline. It can't possible be worse then the bullsh-t that I put up with at ASA.

I still haven't forgotten the Company Christmas gift to employees. 2 stale cookies in a box !

 

[doh]

Storminpilot,
Mike Levine is a big fat kentucky fried chicken eatin' mother fv@ker. He sucked at NWA and he sucks today. Since he ran NWA to the brink of bancruptcy which was only avoided because we took massive paycuts, I don't put much stock in anything he says. Listen to what some one says who has actually made money running an airline before you believe his lies!

 

[Cyclone]

Good Airline

What is a good airline?

Depends on your perspective.

To the consumer, it's one where you arrive on time, your bags aren't lost, the employees are friendly, and when there are unforeseen changes you're kept informed (not lied to).

To the pilot, it depends. If you were looking for a job in 1999, it was United, Delta, American etc, Pilots considered pension plans, high wages, time off, big iron potential...and then the bubble burst in 2001.

Furloughs, concessions, etc

As 2004 rapidly approaches a lot of us would gladly sacrifice big money, A+B plans, 401K, perqs etc, if only we could have a job. Job security at a company with growth potential would be a great thing. That doesn't make us whores. It makes us aware. We've seen what can happen when companies get priorities way out of whack.

To the people on the street looking for a job things look a lot different than they do to a guy flying for Delta making $150K++. And most of us won't ever have the chance at Delta. Personally, I don't ever want to fly for USA Air, Delta, United or American. They put too many pilots on the street. That means "warning Will Robinson." Stay away. Big money isn't everything. Getting laid off isn't my dream.

There are plenty of Captains who managed to hang because of their seniority at a legacy carrier. They know how it is from where they sit. Their perspective is vastly different than a person who is looking for a job. I don't believe that most of them really care as long as they don't have to take too much of a cut in their pay/benefits.

To the management/stockholders things are different again. They want to make money. It's a tough business; competition, tough to hold on to customer loyalty, subject to economic forces not in management's control, etc. One of their biggest obstacles to success is organized labor. Legacy management places a major percentage of the blame for failures on labor.

Where you sit dictates how you see things. For me, LCC is just a name. Instead of LCC we could use MMA. MMA's are "Make Money Airlines" (companies with business models designed to make money). This as opposed to the older, more established, more glamorous "it's all about me" airlines where profit is a secondary concern.

That sounds pretty good. I'd like to work for a stable, secure company that is going to keep me as an employee and still be around when I'm 60. The last few years have taught something about what is important when looking for a job; the greed factor is way down the priority list. Things look different now...not worse...just different.

 

[General Lee]

Storminpilot,

That might be true if the legacy carriers just sat there and did NOTHING. Not the case. Most have trimmed their rosters (Delta cut 16,000 jobs), cut their pay (we are working on it), and figured out how to fight the LCC competition (create your own--Song). Sure, you have to change in this environment---but when the economy is coming back and you have a strong INTL presence also that can and will make big bucks--especially last Summer and this upcoming Summer---it helps to have different playing fields. The Low Cost arena is here to stay, and we will have to do something to compete. Some majors may not survive unless they do something to address the situation.



B6Busdriver,

That is what I thought. But, now Virgin America might also want some of those. Now you guys will be fighting over gate space.....

Bye Bye--General Lee

 

[B6Busdriver]

Well General, my source says we have an agreement to use those gates. We'll see. As for Branson, looks like DL will be fighting another LCC.