Adieu Virgin Blue LCC

We are gathered here today to acknowledge the sell out and passing of our friend and former classmate Virgin Blue.

Effective today they are no longer a Low Cost Carrier but a conventional airline. Witness what they have done:

No Longer 1 Aircraft type - they now have 2 actually 3 but whose counting
No Longer a single class - they have 2 classes
No Longer web only airline - they are available in the GDS
No Longer one size fits all....
Profits are no longer ascending.

So we say Adieu Virgin Blue. Alas I knew her when she was a true Virgin. Now she is developing some decidedly matron like attributes. Just like Qantas.

Airline Branding Oz Style - Its callled.........

Politely "Pissing on your neighbours".

The day after Qantas announced a subtle next generation branding for the uber brand airline - Virgin Blue announced the decision of the jury of its own naming for its Transpacific Airline.

V Australia.

Now I am sure there is much consternation in Mascott right now. V Australia for the old hands is probably a throwback to the days when Qantas 707s were called V Jets.

It is interesting to note that under the terms of the Virgin Group brand franchise, use of the Virgin name is not permitted for the operators of the Virgin brand for airlines in Australia to stray anyway outside of their own territory using the Virgin name. Hence Pacific Blue is the name for the TransTasman and South Pacific services. So lets count the operator list of the Virgin brand in Airlines:

Virgin Atlantic
Virgin Express (now Brussels Airlines)
Virgin Blue
Virgin Nigeria
Virgin America

So technically only 2 should ever appear at the same location at the same time. Virgin Atlantic is allowed everywhere.

So poor old Qantas. Nice shiny new paint jobs with the new logo type and mods. Too bad they have been upstaged by V. I wonder what they will call it for short

Cheers

Timothy

What is the state of the state for Long Haul LCC?

We have been tracking the Long Haul LCC roller coaster. As we predicted in February of this year the market for Long Haul LCC would heat up in 2007. Seems like we might have even underestimated the scale.

If we look at the premier LCCs in the world today we can easily say that the top players include:

Ryanair, Gol, Air Asia, Air Berlin, Virgin Blue and Jetstar. (I am not counting hybrids like US Airways or Airtran who don’t quite count at the moment). Each of these players have taken a slightly different path to Long Haul LCC.

Ryanair will take advantage of the Semi-Open Skies between EU and US next year. Gol bought Varig, Air Asia has the Air Asia X JV with a certain Brit, Virgin Blue plumped down some of its cash for 777s to fly across the Pacific. Jetstar is a surrogate for QF and a replacement for Australian Airlines. Finally Air Berlin jumped into the fray with its purchase of LTU and the recent order this week for 25 787s.

The stage is now set for a explosive growth in long haul LCC. With so much capacity in the Europe-Asia markets, Transpac looking up and even the stodgy old Transatlantic market picking up - the opportunities for significant traffic number growth is looking quite good.

Now of course where will these people end up and is there enough capacity to entertain them once they get there? We shall see

Cheers
Timothy