It was reported last week that Virgin America is now considering flights to Mexico as their next move and I’m now officially at the point of asking “What the hell?”

The original transcontinental flights kind of made sense to me.  The service product they offer is very attractive for transcontinental flights whether you’re in business class or economy.  And they’re clearly working for VA.

But then we see flights being added to Fort Lauderdale, Orlando and Las Vegas.  Even Las Vegas I kind of get because it allows a bit more utilization for the aircraft between transcon flights.  But West Coast to Fort Lauderdale and Orlando?  Even if they do make money, is that really the best use of VA’s time at this point?

There has been a lot of words from CEO David Cush about access to airports such as Chicago O’Hare and Newark and I get that it is expensive to enter those airports.  That happens in big cities dominated by large carriers.  However, other airlines have made them work, why hasn’t VA?

Access exists and being continually afraid of it is getting old.  I’ve pointed out in previous posts that there are *plenty* of destinations in the middle of the US who would love to enjoy VA’s service.  Airports in places such as Dallas / Fort Worth, Denver, St. Louis (with a big aerospace connection to both Seattle and Los Angeles which are existing VA destinations), Kansas City, Austin (big connections to the SF Bay area) , San Antonio (another aerospace connection) and I suspect that even Atlanta might welcome VA. 

But, no, the next vision is Mexico where competition from California is fierce and many other entrenched carriers are revisiting their business.  Perhaps it is to, again, increase utilization but all I’m seeing are primarily leisure destinations and/or convention destinations.  Not exactly the places where your yield is great and your service product is appreciated by high paying business class customers. 

David Cush says they’ll be profitable next quarter.  Great.  My question is, are you really viable as a choice 3 years from now? 

When does VA begin investing in the routes/businesses that its service product was designed for?  When do we see them willing to compete with established airlines (most particularly AA)?  Don’t tell me it can’t be done because I’ll point to jetBlue which started at JFK airport.  Don’t tell me most of those destinations aren’t LCC friendly because I’ll point to Southwest and Airtran.

Filed under: Airline News, Airline Service by ajax