Virgin America held a press conference at Newark International Airport on Monday, celebrating the beginning of service from the New Jersey airport out to the West Coast. Newark International lacks much competition to the west coast, and Virgin Americas introduction to the airport has already started to lower costs on transcontinental routes, while passengers “fly like a boss.”
“This day is a great day for our company, but it poses a huge challenge for me,” said David Cush, CEO of Virgin America. “For five years, when the media would ask me ‘what is the number one airport on the top of your list that you want to fly to,’ its always been easy, its been Newark Airport, and now I need to come up with a new number one,” Cush remarked. “It was an under-served airport from the Bay Area, and if you look at the importance of Newark, it is the number two business market out of San Francisco after JFK,” added Cush. After just one week of service, Cush said that fares have dropped by 40 percent on those routes.
Leading up to beginning of service from Newark, Virgin America held a content called “Fly Like A Boss,” where contestants chose the name for a brand new Airbus A320. The winning name for the aircraft was “Jersey Girl.”
Also in attendance at the press conference was the legendary Richard Branson. “Five years ago, we started Virgin America, and the first place we wanted to fly from was Newark, but we couldn’t get any slots,” said an enthusiastic Branson. Later on in his speech, Branson joked about the rather dull appearance and features of Newark’s terminal A. “Another announcement today,” Branson claimed. “I’ve just had a word with the wonder people behind me, and they’re going to make this terminal look beautiful. So it’s going to be beautiful, no queuing to go through, no security and all that, and it’s going to be the best terminal at Newark, so that’s something to look forward to. We’re going to come back in 12 years time to celebrate this,” said Branson. Sadly, this probably won’t happen any time soon.
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- Richard Branson Says Hello
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- Newark, How You Flyin?!?!?
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- All The Kids Love Virgin America
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- Group Shot
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- Lt. Governor Kim Guadagno
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- Virgin America A320
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- Fly Like A Boss
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- Virgin America A320 Model
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- Group Photo
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- Group Photo
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- Group Photo
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- Virgin America CEO David Cush
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- Richard Branson points at something.
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- Richard Poses
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- Richard Poses
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- The competition lurks right outside the gate window
New Jersey. Meh. EWR is really just a reliever airport for JFK and sanitary alternative to LGA.
Back in the day ATA started EWR to SFO. Continental made short work of them. I remember seeing 30 people on a B-737 and thinking, “yeah this was a good idea.” Granted America’s Virgin is a better run airline than ATA was when Tague was there but United has DEEP pockets.