VIRGIN Atlantic’s maiden 787 Dreamliner flight from London in the UK to Atlanta in the US was named Birthday Girl to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the airline’s inaugural flight across the Atlantic. TTN’s publishing director, Kim Thomson, was aboard the flight and here is an excerpt of her interview with the airline’s chief executive officer, Craig Kreeger.
What does this new 787 Dreamliner mean for Virgin Atlantic?This is a defining moment and time for our company. We have been through a period of recovering our financial performance, while still focusing on our customers, and now we look forward to a really bright future. This aeroplane literally and symbolically represents the transition from where we have been to the next step. The 787 Dreamliner will be a great aeroplane for customers, it’s really comfortable. It has great features every 787 has and it has some unique Virgin Atlantic features such as the mood lighting and the bar. But in the end, the one thing that will always be unique to us is our service – this is the only 787 where you are served by Virgin Atlantic people. That will really differentiate us. What kind of long-term savings are you looking at with this model?On a fuel basis, relative to the A340-600, which this aircraft is mostly replacing, it saves about 32 per cent on fuel – great for the airline and the environment. It is also about 60 per cent quieter than the planes it is replacing. The first route this aircraft will service is Boston, and then some other key transatlantic routes. Where else are you looking at?We haven’t made decisions yet, but in the end, when we have 21 of these aircraft in about four years from now, it will represent approximately three-fourths of the flights out of Heathrow for us and so virtually all of our Heathrow markets over time will get 787s.There is an issue we know on slots out of London’s Heathrow and Gatwick. In light of this, will there be new destinations not just for the 787 but for Virgin Atlantic? One of the great things about being an airline instead of, say, a hotel company, is that we can take the aeroplanes and put them somewhere else. So the answer is, of course, there could be changes to our network, and we will always be looking at what is the best place to fly to serve the most customers most successfully, but we have just been through that exercise and we are confident that the network we now have is one that will work. Over time, things will change and there are many markets that I would love to see us flying in, markets such as Beijing as Sir Richard Branson indicated, or Sao Paolo, for example, but at this point the places we have put the planes look like they are going to do better and serve more people; so that is where we will keep them for now.What does Atlanta as a destination mean for Virgin? Atlanta is a very vibrant city, a lot of corporate headquarters have re-located here as the South has really grown, but as much as that, what Atlanta offers us is 160-plus new destinations that we can serve.