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While it may sound something like an apparition at a religious shrine, Virgin Australia CEO Jayne Hrdlicka revealed today [Wednesday] Bain Capital’s vision that the new Virgin Australia under her leadership, will target securing one third share of the domestic market, retain core lounges and will leverage new technology for  a simplified travel experience.

She added that Virgin will compete in its mid-market heartland for guests who want a more premium experience at an affordable and competitive price and  will build its proposition around its most loyal guests, including price-conscious corporate travellers, SMEs, premium leisure travellers and holidaymakers.

No surprises there, but whether that is what they will end up doing we shall have to wait and see!

Running an airline in this highly competitive space, she describes as “a more premium experience at an affordable and competitive price” is an expensive exercise as the previous bosses and investors of Virgin found out, which one would imagine Hrdlicka would know, with her experience in cheap as chips, low cost carriers, with low operating costs and low prices, with the consensus being you have to be low operating cost and low prices or high operating cost and high prices, not in the middle, trying to provide ”a more premium experience at an affordable and competitive price”!

With Bain Capital also determined to recoup their investment and make money, industry analysts suggest that Virgin Australia will end up a low cost, low service carrier, with which I concur and while it may not happen now, in this highly competitive world many are of the view that Virgin Australia will end up losing its what will be an expensive battle with QANTAS, as its predecessors did and will end up competing with Jetstar.

What do you think?

A report by John Alwyn-Jones