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
Bombardier CS100 seen in Porter Airlines livery.
On Wednesday, Porter Airlines President Robert Deluce announced that his airline will be the Canadian launch customer for Bombardier’s next-generation jetliner, the CS100. The conditional order is for 12 CS100s, along with options for an additional 18 aircraft.
The CS100 can fly with up to 110 passengers, with a range of about 5,400 km or just under 3,000 miles, turning Porter into a potential transcontinental carrier. But there are BIG challenges in store for Mr. Deluce and his team at Porter.
The CS100 needs 4,800 feet of runway at maximum take-off weight. As you might have read in AirlineReporter.com’s story on Porter Airlines, they are based at Toronto’s downtown Billy Bishop Toronto Island Airport (YTZ). The Q400 turboprops that Porter and Air Canada fly from YTZ operate efficiently and safely from the airport. I got my pilot’s license there in the early 1980s, and the longest runway at the airport is only 4,000 feet. With water at both ends.
BONUS: The First Bombardier CSeries Rolls Out of the Factory
Adding to the runway challenge is the ’œno jets’ restriction in place at the airport. Porter is likely going to face a huge battle with the various residents’ associations and the City of Toronto.
The CS100s may be as quiet as the Q400s, thanks to their new-tech Pratt & Whitney PW1500G geared turbofans. Mr. Deluce kept coming back to that point in his press conference yesterday. But nobody really knows, because the CS100 hasn’t yet flown.
I’m guessing that these are the reasons for the conditional order.
BONUS: Interior (mock up) Tour of the Bombardier CSeries in Montreal
So what does Mr. Deluce have up his sleeve? Will he operate the CS100s with less than 110 seats, limiting the take-off weight, so that the plane needs less runway? He says that he’s going to ask the City of Toronto to extend the main runway by 500 feet at both ends, but how many years will it take for the debate and decision, not to mention the construction? Or will he establish a new base for the CS100s at another airport? And what about the ’œno jets’ restriction at YTZ?
This is going to be very interesting! I’m sure that both Air Canada and Westjet are watching closely.
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This story written by… Howard Slutsken, Correspondent.Howard has been an AvGeek since he was a kid, watching TCA Super Connies, Viscounts and early jets at Montreal’s Dorval Airport. He’s a pilot, and gets away to fly gliders whenever he can. Howard is based in Vancouver, BC.
@HowardSlutsken |
An awesome photo, closer up of British Airways 787 at Paine Field. Taken by moonm.
Three days this week, we have posted a photo post on a new livery on a 787 (An American Airlines 787 and a Norwegian Air 787 were posted earlier this week). Today we are highlighting British Airways first Boeing 787 Dreamliner is a sort of semi-livery. As in the tail is painted, but the fuselage is not.
We have seen this before and every other time, it has turned out to mean a special livery for the 787. Is British Airways planning the same? As of posting, no official word from the airline, but my guess is we will probably see something a bit different than their standard livery.
British Airways Boeing 787 Dreamliner seen from the Strato Deck at the Future of Flight. Photo by Sandy Ward.
This has been a good month for BA and new aircraft types. Earlier, their first Airbus A380 rolled out of the paint hangar in Germany and now the 787 in Everett. Just too bad we do not know when the Dreamliner will be delivered to the airline.
Any guesses what this livery might entail? Or do you think it will just end up being the standard livery?
A big thanks to moonm and the Future of Flight for letting us use their photos.
The First Virgin America A320 With Sharklets
At Virgin America’s Newark Airport inaugural celebration this week, I had the opportunity to sit down with CEO David Cush for AirlineReporter.com. While talking about their new Airbus A320 with Sharklets, Cush detailed his airlines future plans for flights to Hawaii.
Jason: ’œYou just took delivery of your first A320 with Sharklets, when do you expect that to enter into service?
Cush: ’œIt should be in about two weeks, let’s call it around April 25th or so.’
Jason: ’œDo you have any idea which route it will be flying initially?’
Cush: ’œIt’ll be flying some of the longer routes, because of the efficiency, so probably San Francisco-Boston, San Francisco-JFK. We took delivery of that one in Hamburg, and it was a beautiful airplane on the way over. Our chief pilot flew it over, and we actually saw greater than 4 per cent efficiency from Sharklets. So they estimated 3.5, we saw a little bit over 4.
Jason: ’œHow do you estimate that will impact your operations?’
Cush: ’œWe fly these aircraft kind of at the edge of their performance. When we’re flying Boston to San Francisco, in the winter and into headwinds, that’s about all that aircraft can do. Now what we got is an airplane that can do that easily without weight restrictions. So it’s not only a fuel efficiency thing, it’s a performance thing.
Jason: ’œI know that JetBlue had taken delivery of the first production retrofit a couple of months ago, and they have been doing that exact route, and they report that they have to make fewer tech stops to refuel. Do you anticipate less stops or was that a problem initially without Sharklets?>
Cush: ’œWe don’t take tech stops. If we’ve got a long flight plan or strong winds, what we do is we basically buy passengers off the airplane. So, rather than inconveniencing everyone, what we’ll do is will find people to buy off, and they’ll wait for the next one. We take very few tech stops, usually when it’s an unplanned change. But what this will mean is that we will never have to take passengers out of the aircraft again.
Jason: ’œHow often do that [buying passengers off the flight] happen right now?’
Cush: ’œI would say during the dead of winter, with a bad jet stream, I would say maybe as much of 10 per cent of the flights out of Boston.
Jason: ’œDo you anticipate the impact of Sharklets being able to open any new routes in the future?
Cush: ’œThe main thing is that it lets you do West Coast to Hawaii, and that’s something you can’t do with the current aircraft. And so we’ll be using Sharklet equipped airplanes in 2015 when we start flying to Hawaii, and we can’t do that without the Sharklets.
Jason: ’œAre there any plans to retrofit current aircraft with Sharklets?’
Cush: ’œWe’re going to wait and see. You know, there’s a lot of work you have to do on the wing, a lot of weight you add to the aircraft, which is a little bit of a challenge for us. We like the fuel efficiency, we don’t like the additional weight, so we’re not in a big hurry to do it. I know JetBlue is really blazing that trail, we’ll probably just sit back and see what their experience is, and if it’s good, we’ll probably go ahead and do the same thing.
Jason: ’œAll future deliveries of Airbus aircraft at this point, will they be Sharklet equipped?
Cush: ’œAll of ours will be. We’re not taking any more airplanes until 2015, and then we’ll take 10 from 2015 to 2016.
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This story written by… Jason Rabinowitz, Correspondent.
Jason is a New York City native who has grown up in the shadow of JFK International Airport. A true “avgeek”, he enjoys plane spotting and photography, as well taking any opportunity he can get to fly on an aircraft.
@AirlineFyer | FaceBook |Virgin America, Sharklets, Hawaii |
Norwegian Air’s first Boeing 787 Dreamliner. Image from Norwegian.
Last week, the first 787 destined for Norwegian Air rolled out of the Boeing paint hangar up at Paine Field (KPAE).
Wonder if anyone has called Norwegian’s livery Rudolph.
For those of you who attended this year’s Aviation Geek Fest may remember seeing line 102 on the factory tour in its white protective coating.
Norwegian Air’s first 787 Dreamliner.
The most striking and noticeable feature about this scheme is the fully painted red nose/front third of the aircraft, which for me looks very different compared to all of the white front halves that we have seen on every other 787 at this point. It’ll take a little to get used to but definitely is nice to see something a little different.
The tail, like on all of the airline’s 737s, features an important historic person that means something for the country.
Sonja Henie was chosen to be on the airline’s first 787 Dreamliner.
Sonja Henie is featured on the tail of the first 787 and is a three time Olympic Champion and film star.
Side angle of Norwegian’s first Dreamliner.
So far this is easily one of the sharpest looking 787 schemes and will be the easiest one to pick out of a line up.
Due to the current woes facing the Dreamliner, it is uncertain when Norwegian will be taking delivery of their first plane.
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This story written by…Brandon Farris, Correspondent.
Brandon is an avid aviation geek based in Seattle. He got started in Photography and Reporting back in 2010. He loves to travel where ever he has to to cover the story and try to get the best darn shot possible.
@BrandonsBlog | RightStuffPhotography | Flickr |
