iscoverTo mark the first flight of Virgin Blue on August 31 2000, this story from the Australian Aviation archives is from September 2010, when Ellis Taylor looked at the first decade of of the airline’s operations.
August 31 2010 was a major milestone for Virgin Blue, with the airline celebrating its 10th anniversary – a feat that at some stages appeared unlikely.
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RHeaton
says:Great coverage of this airline…. you can see how far its come….. and how much JB wreaked havoc on the finances of VA.
I kind of wish AirNZ bought out VA, that way it would have been run properly! Especially after a serious 350m loos announcment!
Really, better to have a single fleet, but thats not nessasary if you have Boeing and Airbus, like VA and Tigerair….. you just got to expand them so that you get scale and discounts for the scale. Clearly something JB and VA management know nothing about.
Dan
says:Problem with an Air NZ takeover is that many Aussies remember what happened to Ansett courtesy of Air NZ and their “own version of John Borghetti” at the time (aka Selwyn Cushing). But VA/NZ ended up being moot when the other shareholders voted against Luxon to oust JB.
Cushing and NZ took over an ailing AN despite knowing his company didn’t have the financial resources to fix a problematic AN (which was started all the way back when TNT and Abeles took over AN in the 80s).
Steven Sarow
says:What a great story. I have worked for Virgin Blue, Virgin Australia for over 18 years and I had forgotten some of those pivotal times… thanks for the trip down memory lane. Let’s hope we continue to create more memorable times in the Australian Skies..