British maverick Sir Richard Branson, a high school dropout who parlayed his Virgin brand into a multibillion-dollar fortune, will be aboard the airline bearing that iconic name when it touches down this afternoon in Honolulu.
Virgin America, named the best in U.S. air travel for eight straight years by Travel + Leisure magazine, is making its inaugural flight to Honolulu from San Francisco with a new 149-seat Airbus 320 aircraft aptly named the Pineapple Express. Virgin America will expand its Hawaii service further on Dec. 3 when it begins flying between San Francisco and Kahului.
Given Branson’s penchant for risk-taking exploits, it’s no surprise that the airline is taking a new twist on the work-hard, play-hard attitude and promoting its new service as "Work Hard, Hawaii Hard."
The Burlingame, Calif.- based airline has dressed up its planes with a colorfully lit interior, leather seats, touch-screen personal entertainment, on-demand food ordering system, Wi-Fi and power outlets at every seat.
And the company will be forever linked with the entrepreneurial Branson, who founded the conglomerate Virgin Group, which holds stakes in about 100 companies worldwide, including a majority ownership of English-based Virgin Atlantic Airways and an 18.6 percent stake in Virgin America.
In 1970 Branson and his colleagues were brainstorming to try to come up with a name for a mail-order discount record company that he started.
"Somebody … laughed and (said) why not Virgin," Branson said in July during a Bloomberg Television interview. "We’re all virgins, and we shared a laugh all around. And I suddenly thought, ‘I am virgin at business. I might be virgin at other things as well. And why not Virgin.’"
The rest is history.
Virgin Records was sold by Branson to Thorn EMI, a British consumer electronics and music company, in June 1992 for a reported $1 billion. Today the Virgin name is connected to music, air travel, cellphones and trains, among other things.
"I’ve been extraordinarily fortunate," Branson told Bloomberg Television. "I’ve enjoyed every minute of my life. I wouldn’t swap my life with anybody."
Branson, 65, is the 11th-richest person in the United Kingdom and 312th in the world, with a net worth of $5 billion, according to Forbes’ latest rankings. He lives in the British Virgin Islands on a 74-acre island that he bought in 1978 for $180,000.
"I’ve never been interested in making money," Branson told Bloomberg Television. "It’s easy to say, I suppose people might say, when you have made money. I’m just interested in creating things, and creating things that I can be proud of, and having a lot of fun creating things."
Hawaii will be the next stop for Virgin America, with Honolulu and Kahului representing the 22nd and 23rd destinations served by the California airline.
Virgin America President and CEO David Cush, who earlier this year said Hawaii was "the big glaring hole" in the 8-year-old airline’s network, said Thursday during an earnings conference call that he expects Hawaii to be a strong market for the company from the start.
"We are starting (service) in a very nice peak (season), so we expect that’s going to do well for us out of the gate," Cush said.
He also said that while the airline’s daily routes to Honolulu and Maui will represent a small piece of Virgin America’s business, it’s a "high PRASM market," referring to the passenger revenue per available seat mile that the airline will generate.
"We believe the Hawaii routes from San Francisco to Honolulu and Maui will be strong performers for us," Cush said. "If you look at the average fares from California to Hawaii, they are actually higher than the (transcontinental) market, very simply because you don’t have the impact of midcontinent hubs going to Hawaii the same way in transcon. The average fares are higher than transcon markets, and that includes JFK (in New York) and Boston, which are two of the most profitable markets."
On its website, Virgin Brand last week was offering one-way flights from San Francisco to Honolulu for November and December ranging from $165 to $802 without upgrades. For flights originating in Honolulu, one-way flights to San Francisco range from $169 to $722.
"The key difference with Hawaii versus transcon is 80 percent of California-to-Hawaii point of sale is in California, which is where our strength is and where our customer base is," Cush said. "When you look at it on transcon, it is about 45 percent. So again we are playing to our strength when it comes to Hawaii. It is a lucrative market. It is a large market and one that is predominantly California point of origin."
Gov. David Ige and Hawaii Tourism Authority leaders will be among those at a red carpet reception today to welcome Branson and Cush. Preschoolers from Punana Leo, a Hawaiian language immersion school program, will present a blessing during a press conference. The event will conclude with an evening launch party hosted by Branson at an oceanfront estate in Lanikai.
Local aviation historian Peter Forman said Virgin America’s initial Hawaii service with one flight a day from San Francisco to both Honolulu and Maui likely won’t create any pressure on airfares, but will help stimulate passenger traffic.
"Since San Francisco is their big hub, they will certainly be able to funnel some traffic through San Francisco to Honolulu and eventually to Maui," Forman said. "They’re a quality airline, and it’s always nice to have choices in air travel."
