Virgin Blue new CEO to introduce "Airline of the Future" project

Virgin Blue outgoing CEO, Brett Godfrey, confirmed new CEO, John Borghetti's first job will be to roll out the carrier's "Airline of the Future project", in which it will introduce aircraft configured with three classes, premium economy, "a traditional economy" and a "low-cost, user-pays model" (Sydney Morning Herald, 06-Mar-2010). Mr Godfrey stated Virgin is introducing the new LCC class, as it has not received "a lot of value" from its Economy class.

Virgin Blue: "So we've seen an ability to lower our costs further by putting in more seats and being comparable in terms of seat pitch…We are a great believer that we can be pretty much all things to all people. We don't believe we have to segment our airline between a quality brand and a low-cost brand. We think that we can do it on the [one] aeroplane, which is, I might add, what Qantas does today when they travel trans-Pacific. They have a first, business, premium economy and economy - they do it on the one aircraft. So that's what we're looking at doing on a short-haul regional perspective," Bruce Buchanan, CEO. Source: Sydney Morning Herald, 06-Mar-2010.