Virgin America Begins Ticket Sales For August Flights

Virgin America today announced it would launch flights next month and began taking reservations, following months of hurdles in gaining the U.S. Department of Transportation's approval to get off the ground.

Virgin America on Aug. 8 plans to launch its flagship route between San Francisco and New York JFK, as well as service between SFO and Los Angeles International. Beginning Aug. 29, the carrier will launch LAX-JFK service, and on Sept. 26 will serve Washington Dulles from San Francisco. In October, the carrier will commence service between San Francisco and Las Vegas, as well as LAX and Dulles.

The carrier expects to serve as many as 10 cities within a year of operation and up to 30 cities within five years.

Vice president of planning and sales Brian Clark characterized Virgin America as a "hybrid carrier" between low-cost airlines and legacy operators. The carrier will sell its fares—all nonrefundable but available for credits if unused—starting at $44 each way for coach and $149 each way in first. "Our highest coach fare will start with a three," Clark said. "Generally speaking, we will offer some very attractive walk-up fares or business fares for folks that are buying tickets within seven days. To buy a transcon ticket, it will be a JetBlue type of ticket for our main cabin. Even more special, from our perspective, is our first class cabin. We're going to drop our first class fares and even try and sell first class up to 50 percent below walkup coach fares on legacy carriers."

Clark said upon launch, its focal point of distribution will be its Web site, "but for the corporate market, we will on day one have one GDS partner and we will have one online partner," using Galileo and Orbitz, which includes Orbitz for Business, Clark said. "They will be our exclusive launch customers."

The carrier offers eight first class seats on each flight with 55 inches of pitch and a 165-degree incline, while the bulk of its coach cabin will have 32 to 33 inches of pitch. Clark said bulkhead and exit rows boast seats with 39 inches of pitch, available for an additional $25 for transcontinental flights and $15 for shorthaul.

Each seat offers a power port, USB port and 9-inch widescreen television monitor with movies on demand. Wi-Fi also is on tap. "Our planes are pre-wired for broadband, so middle or late next year we hope to fire up wireless and productivity is at your ground-based levels," he said.

DOT in May approved Virgin America to launch service, following months of negotiations as to the carrier's compliance with U.S. laws governing foreign ownership of domestic carriers.