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Virgin America To Sublease Aircraft?

HikesWithEyes From United States of America, joined Jan 2004, 816 posts, RR: 8
Posted (6 years 10 months 3 days ago) and read 3396 times:

http://www.aviationnow.com/avnow/new...ily_story.jsp?id=news/VIR08186.xml

First, benzene in my Perrier, and now this!

9 replies: All unread, jump to last

Lono From United States of America, joined Apr 2004, 1321 posts, RR: 1
Reply 1, posted (6 years 10 months 2 days 23 hours ago) and read 3269 times:

Doooooohhhhh!!!!!

I still would like to see these guys give it a go....

Wally Bird Ruled the Skys!

LN-MOW From United States of America, joined Jan 2000, 1897 posts, RR: 15
Reply 2, posted (6 years 10 months 2 days 23 hours ago) and read 3238 times:

Makes total sense. If they can't operate them themselves yet, it's a good way to bring in some money. And build some hours for the crew.

- I am LN-MOW, and I approve this message.

HikesWithEyes From United States of America, joined Jan 2004, 816 posts, RR: 8
Reply 3, posted (6 years 10 months 2 days 23 hours ago) and read 3209 times:

Quoting LN-MOW (Reply 2):
And build some hours for the crew.

The article doesn't mention whether they will be wet or dry leases.
I would be surprised if VA crew (if there is such an animal) actually
flies them.

First, benzene in my Perrier, and now this!

Dutchjet From Netherlands, joined Oct 2000, 7864 posts, RR: 58
Reply 4, posted (6 years 10 months 2 days 22 hours ago) and read 3188 times:

With no set start up date, VA must do something, having eight very expensive brand new airplanes sitting on the ground for the coming months is not the answer. It will be interesting to see what happens.....

The extra financing is going to raise even more issues......now everyone will want to know who would offer VA another $53 million? And we are all guessing the same answer. This case just got more difficult.

Luv2fly From United States of America, joined May 2003, 11957 posts, RR: 51
Reply 5, posted (6 years 10 months 2 days 22 hours ago) and read 3188 times:

Could me that Virgin America sees a long road ahead before these planes are flying for them.....

You can cut the irony with a knife

ADXMatt From United States of America, joined Jul 2006, 935 posts, RR: 2
Reply 6, posted (6 years 10 months 2 days 20 hours ago) and read 3026 times:

Quoting HikesWithEyes (Reply 3):
The article doesn't mention whether they will be wet or dry leases.
I would be surprised if VA crew (if there is such an animal) actually
flies them.

I would think that it would have to be a dry lease as they are not a certificated carrier. On a wet lease the a/c is flown under the owners certificate. (i.e. Air Mike B764 is flown under the CAL certificate, pilots, dispatchers etc.)

Worldsurfer From United States of America, joined Jun 2006, 128 posts, RR: 0
Reply 7, posted (6 years 10 months 2 days 20 hours ago) and read 2992 times:

I saw 4 Virgin America Aircraft parked in a remote area in YUL on friday , 2 of them had the full Livery and 2 had just red engines and red tails , but no words painted on them. I could not tell if they were A319's or A320's.

ScottB From United States of America, joined Jul 2000, 6373 posts, RR: 34
Reply 8, posted (6 years 10 months 2 days 19 hours ago) and read 2915 times:

This also showed up on Holly Hegeman's PlaneBuzz blog yesterday, referencing the same source and adding a bit of other gossip:

http://www.planebuzz.com/2006/08/political_climate_continues_to.html

I'd imagine that they'd only be able to lease/sublease the actual airframes without being a certificated air carrier. All that throws a bit of a wrench into their potential startup plans if/when the DOT does issue them a certificate, since they'd obviously be bound by the terms of any leases they might sign for the aircraft. You can bet that Continental's lawyers are going to jump on the source of new financing; if it's not from a bona-fide U.S. source, I think you can stick a fork in Virgin America.

Eight Airbus narrowbodies are awfully expensive capital assets on which to have to be eating lease and/or financing costs for an extended period. I'd guess they're burning $1.5 to 2 million per month just on parked airplanes. Not to mention that if JetBlue's startup is any guide, they're also burning a similar amount each month on salaries and overhead. The longer Continental and other network carriers can delay Virgin America's start, the more susceptible the new carrier will be to a protracted fare war which is IMO inevitable.

The other interesting little tidbit -- Virgin America's code is going to be VX.

StarGoldLHR From Heard and McDonald Islands, joined Feb 2004, 1529 posts, RR: 1
Reply 9, posted (6 years 10 months 2 days 4 hours ago) and read 2646 times:

These are the ones at YUL ..

waiting by the petrol / gas station for filling up

Big version: Width: 836 Height: 538 File size: 45kb

A Virgin America A320 freshly painted and in store at YUL, note the Gas Prices

So far in 2008 45 flights and Gold already. JFK, IAD, LGA, SIN, HKG, NRT, AKL, PPT, LAX still to book ! Home Airport LCY

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