Virgin America was the airline company founded on January 26 2004 and commenced operations on August 8 2007. It was a low-cost airline company that operated from 2007 to 2018 and was later acquired by Alaska airlines. This airline company primarily focused on operating low-fare service between the cities on the West Coast and the other major metropolitan areas with a higher quality service. It was also headquartered in the San Francisco Bay area and operated domestic flights to major U.S. cities. The airline company had its hubs at Los Angeles International Airport and the San Francisco International airport.

It began operating as an independent airline company in 2007. It used the branding licensed from the UK-based Virgin group, which controls the brand of Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Australia airlines. The Alaska group acquired Virgin America in April 2016 at $4 billion. It also continued to operate Virgin America under its name. It fully merged with Alaska Airlines on April 24 2018.

History

Virgin group announced its intention of finding a US-based low-fare airline called Virgin USA in early 2004, and at the time, USA expected the flights to begin by mid-2005. They considered several vital areas, and the San Francisco Bay Area was chosen as the primary location of its flight operations center, later it became its corporate headquarters. The airline also changed its name from Virgin USA to Virgin America. The launch date also got pushed back from mid-2005 to early 2006.

The airline also secured US investors Black Canyon Capital and the Cyrus Capital Partners in late 2005. After the new owners were on board, the General Counsel of the airlines submitted the required US Department of Transportation certificate application on December 9 2005. There was significant public support for the new California-based airline, and the approval process was mired in a huge debate between the supportive city and the state representatives from California and New York. They opposed the national aviation Labor union.

Virgin Group operations

The airline company began selling tickets in July 2007 and on August 8 2007, the airline also made its inaugural New York and LA to San Francisco flights, C David Cush replaced Reid as the CEO of the airline in December 2007. However, since the beginning, the airline company reported losses from $270 million in the first month until third quarter of 2010 when it achieved its first profit of $7.5 million.

Virgin America became the first US airlines to offer a wifi access via Gogo Inflight Internet on every flight. From November 10 2009 and January 15 2010, this airline also offered free Wi-Fi with a subsidy from Google and on December 17, 2014, it also announced that it would offer a faster fleet-wide ATG-4 in-flight wifi service from Gogo with the speeds three times faster than the first generation system.

Virgin America also announced its intention to start flying to Toronto from Los Angeles in March 2010 making it the airline’s first international destination. The International service began with flights to Toronto Pearson International airport on June 29 2010. Owing to the high operating costs, slower growth, response from competitors and higher demand for Dallas, Virgin America terminated Toronto Service on April 6 2011.

It also announced in January 2011, a firm order for sixty new Airbus A320 aircraft which also included thirty new Airbus A320neos.

Alaska Airlines merger

The airline company has its first public offering at the NASDAQ stock exchange on November 14, 2014, selling 13.3M shares to raise $307 million for the company.

Many airlines approached Virgin America in late 2015, prompting the airline to correspond with an undisclosed financial adviser about how to process with a sale. Alaska was interested at $44.75 per share in 2015 and a bidding war ensured on March 31 and April 1 at $57 per share.