You would think that with the number of press releases Virgin America has sent out, they’d actually be flying by now. Of course, you’d be wrong.
This airline sounds exactly like what they call “vaporware” in the tech community. Defined by Webopedia, vaporware is “A sarcastic term used to designate software and hardware products that have been announced and advertised but are not yet available.”
Sounds about right, huh?
So, Virgin, er, Vapor America continues to soldier on before they’ve even heard back from the DOT about their objections. What’s the latest?
Yesterday, the airline announced that Sam Skinner, former Chief of Staff under Papa Bush and former DOT secretary, will join the Board of Directors. This seems like an attempt to cull favor in Washington, but I can’t imagine it will. The annoying indignant tone hasn’t gone away, and unless the ownership problem is fixed to the Department’s satisfation, they can add whoever they want to their board and not get anywhere.
Then today they announced their first six cities. They had already announced San Francisco and New York/JFK, but now they’ve added that within the first nine months of flying, they’ll also be in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, San Diego, and Washington/Dulles. That’s about what I would have expected, but right now, who cares? They’re trying to get the public excited, but once again, public support isn’t going to change ownership issues.