There is a lot more to launching an airline than simply putting a plane on the runway, however. That is particularly true in the US, where legislation is especially stringent. For a country that prides itself as the freest marketplace in the world, it certainly has some of the strictest regulations. Our competitors, who just possibly had their bottom lines in mind more than a sense of patriotism, began questioning our “American-ness.” They tried to paint me as an eccentric British entrepreneur who had no place meddling in US business. I was happy to subscribe to the first half of the description, but the second complaint was plainly ridiculous. By law, non-Americans may not own more than 25 percent of the voting shares of a US airline, a ruling that we were careful to stick to. While we licensed the Virgin brand and considered Virgin America very much part of the family, the Virgin Group did not control the airline. But by objecting relentlessly, our competitors managed to delay our launch and cost us tens of millions of dollars at the same time.
They also forced us to lose our brilliant CEO, with Department of Transportation regulators demanding Fred Reid’s removal by February 2008 as a condition of granting our certificate to start flights. Because I’d interviewed Fred for the job on Necker Island, he was deemed too close to me: some rivals even claimed I had hired him as a puppet CEO while I would run the business. Despite the accusations, Fred remained incredibly upbeat.
“Well, my sell-by-date is coming up, we better get moving,” he said at his last meeting.
I gave him a hug and thanked him for his superb work, but everyone was frustrated. By mid-2006 we had a fully employed staff, customers-in-waiting and planes sitting on the tarmac unable to fly.
In the end, it was the wonderful American people who got us off the ground. In January 2007, we took to the streets of San Francisco, explained what our airline was all about and let the public decide for themselves whether they wanted the option of flying with us. By May, more than 75,000 letters had been sent to Congress on our behalf. It turned out we were “American” enough after all, and we finally got approval to fly from the Department of Transportation.
Delighted, we began selling tickets in July, gearing up for our inaugural flight the following month. Passengers were signing up in droves and our planes and teammates were raring to go. We arranged a big press push to celebrate our launch, with inaugural flights from New York and Los Angeles landing in San Francisco simultaneously. There was just one problem, though: while we had permission to fly in theory, the actual Department of Transportation certificate had yet to materialize.
On 7 August, the day before the planned inaugurals, there was still no sign of the paperwork. I was being interviewed in the Virgin Atlantic lounge at JFK in New York, determined not to let slip we were still worried we’d never get off the ground. It was touch-and-go, but, finally, we got a call from our counsel. Their message was short but sweet: “The eagle has landed.” I jumped out of my seat, cheered and ordered champagne all round, even though it was ten in the morning. Our inaugural flights from New York and Los Angeles took off and Virgin America was go.
—
After launching more services between Washington, San Francisco and Los Angeles, we began flying the route I was most excited about: Las Vegas. In the UK, they describe Vegas as the city where even your accent is an aphrodisiac, and I wouldn’t argue with that. It’s a place I always love visiting, letting my hair down and having a blast.
As I traveled to the West Coast ahead of our inaugural flight to Vegas on 10 October, I had no idea what the team had in mind for our launch. I had given them a single piece of guidance in what they came up with: “There’s only one way to announce anything in Vegas—by being completely over the top.”
“We won’t disappoint,” promised Abby Lunardini, Virgin America’s head of communications.
A while earlier, I had been ordained as a minister in the Universal Life Church. It was surprisingly simple to get accreditation online. But I hadn’t yet had the chance to use the powers vested in me to declare a couple husband and wife. With Vegas being the capital of quickie marriages and outlandish decisions, we decided our inaugural flight to Sin City would be the perfect place to hold the world’s first wedding at 35,000 feet. The willing couple happened to be our marketing director and his fiancée, and they were only too happy to tie the knot in between the aisles. The wedding was a great success and a lovely way of both celebrating our employees and showing the world that we intended to do things differently.
By the time we got to Las Vegas we were in celebratory mood and a crowd greeted us as we reached the Palms Hotel and Casino. I was looking forward to meeting the local team and perhaps having a quick flutter. The comms team, however, had other plans for me: hosting a wedding at 35,000 feet, it turned out, was just for starters. I’d told them to come up with something over the top—I just hadn’t anticipated that the something going over the top, literally so, might be me.
Before we went through the front doors of the Palms Hotel, I saw lots of people craning their necks, looking upward. I couldn’t see what they were looking at: the only thing I noticed was how incredibly windy it was. Then the penny dropped: I would be dropping from up there. I turned to Abby and Christine Choi, our New York–based comms director.
“Am I about to do what I think I’m about to do?”
“We thought it would be fun if you jumped off the top of the Palms Casino,” Abby explained. “We’ve got a ceremony set up at the bottom, hosted by the magicians Penn and Teller, and all of the city’s press are waiting for you to jump into it.”
I hadn’t been warned, presumably because the team were (rightly!) worried I might say no. I took another peek outside. If anything, the wind was picking up: the palm trees were blowing at right angles and I estimated the wind was raging at close to 50 mph. Suddenly, the building looming above me started to look very high indeed. A bell started ringing in my head: Say no, Richard. This is crazy. Tell them you’re not going to do it and walk away. But, of course, it wasn’t quite as simple as that: there was a lot of press there, and expectations were, well, about as high as the Fantasy Tower at the top of the Palms Hotel. I put on a tuxedo and got in a lift, which took forever to go up what felt like hundreds of floors. When I reached the top, I stepped out onto the roof of the hotel. I took a deep breath, and allowed myself to be strapped into a harness. I got halfway up onto the platform to jump, then changed my mind. It just felt too windy. I unclipped myself, turned around and got right back in the lift again.
Abby and Christine looked about as petrified as I did, but for different reasons.
“We’re getting fired, aren’t we?” said Abby.
“I need some time by myself to think it over,” I said. “Call me in my room in fifteen minutes.”
For the next quarter of an hour I paced alone in my suite, debating what I should do. I could soon hear murmuring coming from outside the door: clearly, everyone thought I’d bottled it. Sometimes the bravest thing to do is to say no—especially if you are putting your life at risk. The many times I have had near-death experiences jumping out of balloons and being rescued from the ocean also came to mind. Compared to those, jumping off a building didn’t seem so bad. But I couldn’t shake this feeling in my bones that something was going to go horribly wrong.
As the fifteen minutes were up, Abby knocked on my door.
“Richard, we appreciate you don’t want to jump, but will you please just come back up to the roof for a few photos with the press?” I guessed what that meant!
When I made it up back onto the roof, there were walls all around blocking off the gale.
“Hey, it’s not that windy after all,” someone said.
Maybe they’re right, I thought. Perhaps the weather was calming down. Perhaps I was making a lot of fuss over nothing. My normal approach to life is to say screw it, let’s do it, and that’s what won. I decided I couldn’t let everyone down. In what seemed l
ike no time at all, I was back in the harness and climbing on top of the wall, staring down at the 407-foot drop.
“Jump! Jump! Jump!”
Far below me, Penn and Teller were whipping the audience into a frenzy. I awkwardly maneuvered myself into position. Suddenly the protection from the walls disappeared, and I felt the full force of the wind. Who said the weather was calming down? It shook me from side to side. After hesitating for so long, I didn’t hang about at the point of release. I waved, gritted my teeth and jumped.
Almost as soon as I was airborne I realized I’d made a bad decision. There was no way I could control my speed or change direction. The wind was whipping through my hair as I hurtled through the air. Below me, Teller was shouting, “Whoa! Slow down, slow down!” But there was nothing I could do.
Traveling at over 100 mph, the wind picked me up and smashed me painfully hard into the side of the building. Fortunately, I hadn’t spun around, so it was my backside that hit the wall rather than my head. It completely ripped the back of my jeans off, cut my legs and arm open and badly bruised my hand. As I finally started to slow down, the searing pain mixed with acute embarrassment and I hung there in midair like a rag doll, feeling an absolute fool. I slowly twirled around and the crowd gasped at the sight of me holding my bleeding bottom in both hands, a look of agony on my face. I reached the ground and the compere handed me a microphone as I struggled out of the harness. I tried to wave at the crowd but my hand was throbbing too much. I must admit, my speech was not one of my better performances. I shoved the mic firmly back into Teller’s hand and meekly limped off the stage.
After spending a couple of hours with medics, I joined our guests and tried to put on a brave face. I wasn’t in the mood to celebrate or mingle, but it was the only option: my arse was hurting so much that I couldn’t sit down. But, looking on the bright side, it could have been a lot worse. What’s more, at least everyone knew Virgin America had arrived in Las Vegas—even if we had landed with a bump!
—
After the Las Vegas launch, we continued to grow Virgin America aggressively. November 2007 was an important moment for the business, with David Cush coming on board as CEO, bringing a wealth of experience after more than twenty-two years at American Airlines. While I love promoting from within, sometimes it is incredibly effective to bring in somebody who knows a sector inside out, has a fresh perspective and is hungry to work on a new and exciting project. He surrounded himself with great Virgin people and between them they understood the Virgin way immediately—to focus on superior customer service, innovative products and design and empowering staff. One of the most satisfying elements of Virgin America’s growth has been hearing so much praise for how unique our team is. “You don’t look like a pilot,” said a passenger as one of our pilots walked through San Francisco airport. “Thanks very much,” he replied. Word of mouth about the airline continued to spread. In 2011 we won Condé Nast’s prestigious Best Domestic Airline award for the fourth of what is now ten years running. Besides the crew, what I loved most was the unique, mood-lit cabins, created by Adam Wells, who now heads design for Virgin Galactic.
But despite the public and critical acclaim, we were still struggling to get the airport slots we needed, fuel costs were rising and competitors were attacking us from all sides. Although revenues grew 43 percent to over $1 billion, we still made a $27.4 million operating loss in 2011. Profit felt a long way off. We launched services from Seattle to Los Angeles and New York to Las Vegas, with West Coast flights to Boston quickly following. While expanding, many companies experience growing pains. But we were determined to live up to our promise to be the most innovative airline around, even as we grew into new markets. We created the first on-demand dining experience in US aviation, and then the advancement I really loved came into play: we became the first airline to offer fleet-wide WiFi.
While I believe in switching off from devices and relaxing without distractions, flying is often the perfect time to get some work done. I have spent thousands of flights waiting to get to the other side to complete a deal, share some news or even talk to my family. Now, I could do it all from the comfort of my seat at 35,000 feet. As the only airline that calls California home, it made sense for us to be at the vanguard of new technological developments. As Wired described us, we are “a million dollar iPod—that flies.”
When we opened our new terminal in San Francisco International Airport, we wanted to christen the runways with a Virgin America flight alongside Virgin Galactic. The regulations for this unprecedented twin flight seemed insurmountable, but somehow we got Federal Aviation Administration approval. Before takeoff, the atmosphere on board the Virgin America plane was electric. We auctioned seats on the flight to support Galactic Unite (the not-for-profit arm of Virgin Galactic) and KIPP charter schools, and invited some of the kids from the program, from aspiring engineers to young flyers, budding mathematicians to fledgling entrepreneurs.
It was one of the most spectacular experiences of my life, looking out the window of our plane to see our spaceship riding alongside, then glancing back inside at the awestruck faces of so many children. I sat next to the Lieutenant Governor of California, Gavin Newsom, watching our spaceship flying gracefully close to the window as we circled above the gleaming Golden Gate Bridge. We urged some of the middle-school kids to climb over us and wave at the Virgin Galactic pilots.
It was as though we were staring out into the future. We could practically see Scaled Composites pilot Mark “Forger” Stuckey, who went on to join the Virgin Galactic team in 2015, smiling from WhiteKnightTwo’s cockpit. Everybody on the plane whooped and cheered, knowing we were part of history in the making. We landed side by side on the airport’s dual runways, the first passengers to arrive at the terminal. It was fitting that the Virgin America plane was named My Other Ride’s A Spaceship—perhaps my favorite ever name for an aircraft. Some of the students had never been on a plane before, let alone seen a spaceship. I’m sure the experience showed that space is a very real part of their future and encouraged them to dream big.
“I hope some of you grow up to become astronauts or pilots,” I said. “Or both.”
—
You can tell a lot about an airline from its safety video. Most were safe and dreadfully dull. We wanted to create a video that got people’s attention, helped them remember the important details and entertained them. Together with Virgin Produced, Virgin America created the first ever safety video set entirely to music and performed in dance. Millions of views and several awards later, the most gratifying response is still seeing the smiles on passengers’ faces every time the video comes on. The Safety Dance can now be seen on dance floors, in airport terminals, all over the internet, in bedrooms and, of course, on planes. One of our team even performs the Safety Dance live in-flight and taught me the moves. I may not be quite as coordinated as some of the team, but I gave it a good go.
This kind of thing is great for building morale, as well as showing the public what we are about. I always try to make sure everyone keeps their sense of humor through it all. Virgin America has provided plenty of opportunities for that. I’ve made it a habit to hide inside the overhead luggage holds, encouraging the crew to do likewise. When guests board and open the holds, we greet them with a friendly, “Good morning, sir. Can I take your bag?”
But despite these lighter moments, the challenges to make Virgin America a success continued. In their wisdom, the US competition authorities somehow let the six largest airlines in the US become three giant airlines. Through sheer size, they dominate the market and control slots in key airports, stifling competition and innovation. The industry response bore this theory out: in nearly every major survey of US airlines, United came out last, while Virgin America was top of the pile. Size rarely equates to quality.
By 2013, Virgin America had been applying to get the necessary slots for five years to enter Newark airport and begin operations th
ere. Every time, the authorities told us there were no slots available. In reality, the incumbent airlines were squatting on capacity—running small planes at a loss—in order to keep the competition out. We got a foot in the door when American Airlines went into Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code and we secured a few of their slots. Once we began operating, fares from Newark to California dropped by 40 percent. I was hopeful we could expand further, but somehow United were awarded a new batch of slots.
I felt their sole aim was to push Virgin America out of the market place—whatever the cost. I publicly called them out on it and we lobbied behind the scenes to get flyers a better deal, asking the Department of Transportation to end the practice of squatting on capacity. We got our Newark slots, but were still wary that the competition would do everything they could to maintain their monopolies and keep us out of their markets.
CHAPTER 12
The Rebel Billionaire
I met Ivanka Trump a year before I met Donald Trump in the early 1990s. She was handing out the prizes at the Business Traveller Awards in London. Upon receiving the top airline award from her, I exuberantly picked her up and turned her upside down for a light-hearted photo. She took it well, dined with us later, canceled her British Airways ticket and returned to the States on Virgin Atlantic. The following day’s headlines said “Virgin turns up Trumps again at Business Traveller Awards.” A while later, Donald invited me to lunch at his apartment in Manhattan.
Finding My Virginity: The New Autobiography Page 10