Virgin America flies into sunset
Wednesday morning, customers arriving at 29 airports in the U.S. and Mexico found something missing: all check-in counters, kiosks, signs and gate areas branded as Virgin America.
These 29 airports are where Virgin America and Alaska Airlines both were still operating flights, yet on Tuesday night, two years after Alaska Airlines acquired Virgin America for $2.6 billion, the final Virgin-branded revenue flights took off.
The final flight was Virgin America Flight 1948, which departed San Francisco for Los Angeles at 9:32 p.m.
Overnight, Alaska switched out all the Virgin America branding. Virgin America employees also switched to using Alaska’s computer systems.
“We’ll have a single flight network,” Alaska said in a statement.
“All flights will be referred to as Alaska Airlines flights. There will only be Alaska ticket counters, gates and baggage claim areas. We’ll operate one website, one mobile app and only Alaska check-in kiosks at airports. We’ll have a single call center.”
A few remaining vestiges of the Virgin America brand still will be around.
“For a period of time, a guest could board an Airbus plane that’s painted in Alaska colors, but still has a Virgin America interior,” according to Alaska’s statement.