Virgin Blue's Already a 2008 Big Winner
It seems a bit early to start announcing awards like Best Low Cost Airline of the Year for 2008, but the Budgie Awards for LCCs were announced this week and Down Under's Virgin Blue, it seems, is the best of 'em all. As well as being a great airline to fly, late last year Virgin Blue was named the third most profitable airline in the world.
So what next for a successful, profitable airline? Well, for one, they're planning a long-haul version of Virgin Blue that will compete on the Australia-United States route, even though the CEO admitted such a route wouldn't be profitable "for at least 15 months."
Within Australia, Virgin Blue is introducing some new routes, such as a direct flight from Canberra to the far more exciting Gold Coast using Embraer jets. If you'd ever visited the political haven that is Australia's capital, you'd understand why the locals would be so thrilled to have a cheap direct link to the Gold Coast.
And over in the western half of Oz, Virgin Blue has recently signed a code-share deal with Skywest, opening up cheap connections to Western Australian towns like Kalgoorlie, Kununurra and the holiday paradise of Broome. The only down side to Virgin Blue's recent headlines is their decision to increase fuel surcharges, effective today. Luckily, it works out to only about $8 per ticket on a domestic route. In the LCC battle you have to take the bad with the good.
Related Stories:
· Will Lion Air Roar Into Australia? [Jaunted]
· Virgin Blue coverage [Jaunted]
[Photo: jnxyz]
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