BigGSFO From United States of America, joined Jun 2005, 2762 posts, RR: 7 Posted (3 years 1 month 2 weeks 12 hours ago) and read 3334 times:
Virgin America postpones Orlando until October due to an unexpected delay in aircraft delivery. Isn't October a better time to start Florida services anyway?
ikramerica From United States of America, joined May 2005, 21041 posts, RR: 60 Reply 2, posted (3 years 1 month 2 weeks 12 hours ago) and read 3268 times:
EDITORS NOTE: Virgin America is a U.S. controlled and operated airline. Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Group is a minority share investor in Virgin America.
Who's paying the editor to "note" that?
Of all the things to worry about... the Wookie has no pants.
dbo861 From United States of America, joined May 2004, 795 posts, RR: 1 Reply 3, posted (3 years 1 month 2 weeks 12 hours ago) and read 3206 times:
Quoting FX1816 (Reply 1): don't know, look at all of the Summer month's, when kids are off from school, that they will miss. Lots of people go to Disney World and such.
The flight wasn't supposed to start until August 19..they'd only be missing out on maybe 2 weeks of summer vacation time. Most family vacations take place earlier in the summer. This is a brand new route that would have required building a passenger base during the September/October downturn. This way, it'll be up and running in time for the Thanksgiving/December holiday travel season..as well as during winter upswing for the Florida market. I see this working out better for VX than beginning in August.
SANFan From United States of America, joined Aug 2006, 4746 posts, RR: 15 Reply 4, posted (3 years 1 month 2 weeks 11 hours ago) and read 2929 times:
Reading the article, it says:
Quote: Virgin America will postpone its start of service to MCO until at least October 2010. In the coming weeks, the airline will release a new MCO start date in the fourth quarter of 2010...
Quote: ...we still intend to bring our low-fare, award-winning service to Orlando before the end of this year.
Sounds like October is a best-case and rather iffy start date... It also sounds to me as though there has possibly been some re-thinking of new-destination priorities (read: perhaps very poor early booking numbers for MCO?)
They go on to say:
Quote: Virgin America is still poised for major growth and expects to take delivery of six additional aircraft in 2010... In addition to Orlando and Toronto, Virgin America intends to launch at least three more new destinations in 2010.
Seems like with the a/c delivery schedule in a bit of a twist -- I would love to hear where this "delivery delay" is actually occuring -- they still seem sure about getting 6 additional a/c this year. And they are still planning on "at least" 3 more new destinations this year? Very generous predictions considering an August start-up is now October, or later, and it's May already, etc. ...
As always with VX, I'll believe it when a new flight actually operates for the first time!
n7371f From United States of America, joined Jul 2008, 1505 posts, RR: 12 Reply 5, posted (3 years 1 month 2 weeks 9 hours ago) and read 2634 times:
Anyone know what the delay is specifically attributed to? I haven't read a peep about Airbus having delivery issues with the 320's. Perhaps this specific aircraft has an issue (damaged)? Then again, it's not unheard of for airlines to blame aircraft deliveries for masking weak initial bookings.
par13del From Bahamas, joined Dec 2005, 5918 posts, RR: 8 Reply 7, posted (3 years 1 month 2 weeks 7 hours ago) and read 2371 times:
Quoting n7371f (Reply 5): Anyone know what the delay is specifically attributed to?
Good question, the first thought that came to my mind was the faulty seat fiasco with the company in Japan, now I have to check to see if narrow body seats were involved.
surfandsnow From United States of America, joined Jan 2009, 2614 posts, RR: 31 Reply 8, posted (3 years 1 month 2 weeks 7 hours ago) and read 2288 times:
Quoting SANFan (Reply 4): It also sounds to me as though there has possibly been some re-thinking of new-destination priorities (read: perhaps very poor early booking numbers for MCO?)
I hope VX isn't getting cold feet about starting MCO, but let's face it, I'm sure it's probably looking pretty pathetic up against YYZ. I've talked to more than a few Canadians who know all about their new routes already, and those fares aren't dirt cheap. I bet YVR is looking very good to VX right now...
Flying in the middle seat of coach is much better than not flying at all!
SANFan From United States of America, joined Aug 2006, 4746 posts, RR: 15 Reply 9, posted (3 years 1 month 2 weeks 6 hours ago) and read 2223 times:
Quoting surfandsnow (Reply 8): I hope VX isn't getting cold feet about starting MCO, but let's face it, I'm sure it's probably looking pretty pathetic up against YYZ. I've talked to more than a few Canadians who know all about their new routes already, and those fares aren't dirt cheap. I bet YVR is looking very good to VX right now...
Of course with a "normal" airline, you'd think LA/SF-YYZ, with only 1 n/s competitor, would look better than YVR (last time I checked, AS, AC, WS and UA were scheduled to fly 11x daily this summer from LAX), but then this IS Virgin America we're talking about here so you're probably right!
You really think YYZ is looking that good, 'surf'n'? With those rotten times they've scheduled, I didn't figure those routes would be setting early-booking records either... (Especially when you consider the short lead-time from the announcement to the inaugural flights and the competitive moves by AC in several CA-YYZ markets.)
surfandsnow From United States of America, joined Jan 2009, 2614 posts, RR: 31 Reply 10, posted (3 years 1 month 2 weeks 4 hours ago) and read 1982 times:
Quoting SANFan (Reply 9): you'd think LA/SF-YYZ, with only 1 n/s competitor,
Actually, both AC and UA fly the SFO-YYZ route, while AA and AC both fly the LAX-YYZ route. Virgin puts AA and UA to shame and is not afraid to compete against them.
Quoting SANFan (Reply 9): would look better than YVR (last time I checked, AS, AC, WS and UA were scheduled to fly 11x daily this summer from LAX), but then this IS Virgin America we're talking about here so you're probably right!
There's a reason why there are so many flights, though! Tons and tons of business and wealthy leisure traffic between the two cities. UA flies crappy RJs and AC is down to all E-jets - Virgin would probably be a very popular alternative to the status quo.
Quoting SANFan (Reply 9): You really think YYZ is looking that good, 'surf'n'?
Well, given how many people seem to know about it, and how the $250+ one-way fares are quite a bit higher than those cheap domestic transcon fares, I'd say so.
Flying in the middle seat of coach is much better than not flying at all!
PlanesNTrains From United States of America, joined Feb 2005, 4568 posts, RR: 28 Reply 11, posted (3 years 1 month 2 weeks 2 hours ago) and read 1796 times:
Hmm... I didn't see that it ever mentioned "delivered late from the factory", so perhaps it's a leased aircraft? I don't know why that would matter, but maybe it makes a difference.
Quoting ikramerica (Reply 2): EDITORS NOTE: Virgin America is a U.S. controlled and operated airline. Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Group is a minority share investor in Virgin America.
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