Death of a Virgin
Alaska Airlines sacrifices Virgin America at the altar of synergies
I fly a lot. That has been true for most of my life, ever since I was an infant. And yet, whereas most people who fly a lot are exceedingly loyal to one airline,¹ I was never wedded to one brand. Because they all basically sucked equally. Until Virgin America landed.
And so I found myself both profoundly sad and increasingly angry at the news that Alaska Airlines, which purchased Virgin America last year, is killing off the brand.
This was probably always inevitable. Airlines gonna airline, after all. But there was some hope that Alaska would keep operating the Virgin brand separately and two could be greater than one. Of course, they had no interest in continuing to pay the Virgin brand licensing fee. But Alaska could have kept the airline alive in spirit. Instead, we’re going to get some weird Frankenstein of an airline. And, importantly, Americans are once again going to have fewer choices when it comes to flying.
Alaska, of course, is saying some of the right things. Because they have to. People actually love the Virgin America brand. But I’m beyond skeptical that this amalgamation will end up as a positive. There’s almost no way it can. This is all about cost-cutting and efficiencies. Those things are anathema to the end-user experience.
But, but, but. People also like Alaska Air! Yeah, yeah. I’ve flown Alaska a number of times. It’s not bad. Better than most even. But it’s not Virgin. And pretending that it’s anything like the Virgin experience is comical.
My colleague Ken Norton brought this up in our team Slack earlier today while talking about this devastating news:
Partial deregulation is terrible. I’m sure some marketing and branding experts told Alaska that the Virgin brand can never be “theirs.” It’s remarkable how different the VA and AlaskaAir brands are in my head. It’s like Apple and Dell. (And in fairness, Alaska is definitely a class above United and the garbage carriers).
Oh boy. Someone comparing anything to Mac vs. PC (Apple vs. Dell). This can’t end well on the internet. But Ken is right. All the people telling us Virgin lovers to calm down, that Alaska is good too, just don’t get it.
Dell was “good” back in the day too — it was the last PC I owned before switching to a Mac. Compared to the vast majority of other PC makers, yes, Dell was quite good. But if you used a Mac for any period of time, your perspective of what “good” was suddenly seemed to get reframed.²
They’re just two entirely different experiences. And mood lighting alone does not a great airline make.³
And so here we are. It’s true that Virgin America didn’t fly to all that many destinations, and so many Americans didn’t even have the chance to know what they were missing. But those of us lucky to live near a Virgin outpost are devastated. Because the Virgin experience really was that good.⁴
These days, you may take a trip and come away saying, “that was actually a pretty good flight.” But that’s an exception in this industry. Not the rule.
For Virgin America, it was the rule.
¹ Because frequent flier miles incentivize odd behavior such as flying across the country simply to keep your status.
² Yes, I know some people prefer PCs to Macs. And I can’t wait to hear about it! Some people have to use them for work. Poor souls. Etc. I’m speaking anecdotally. This is the internet.
³ Alaska comically says they’re going to be adding “mood lighting” to their flights. But not Virgin’s famous purple. They’ll do blue.
⁴ But yes, I’ll admit the online ticketing experience was god-awful for most of Virgin’s existence.
