Latest news with #VirginAirways
Times
5 days ago
- Business
- Times
Richard Branson: My urge to fix businesses that aren't working
E very entrepreneur has a moment they look back on as the start of everything. Mine? A cancelled flight in the Caribbean. I was desperate to get back to a woman I'd fallen in love with (now my wife), and I wondered … What if there was another way? There was a plane. There were stranded passengers. So, I hired the plane, borrowed a blackboard, and wrote: 'Virgin Airways: $39 single flight.' It was a joke, but the plane filled up. As we landed, someone said: 'Virgin Airways isn't too bad, smarten up the service and you could be in business.' That moment became the origin of Virgin Atlantic. At the time, I was growing Virgin Records, travelling often to scout bands and cut deals. But flying was grim: overpriced tickets, bad service, worse food and no competition. I didn't set out to start an airline, I just saw something broken and thought: we can do better.
AU Financial Review
11-06-2025
- Business
- AU Financial Review
Qantas ends Alan Joyce's Asian folly as Hudson narrows focus
Australian aviation's outbreak of rational behaviour is holding. A week after Virgin Airways got its long-awaited IPO over the line by pledging to investors that it would stick to its knitting – solely focused on the domestic market, squarely aimed at the middle of the market, carefully avoiding the sort of growth plans that may spark a price war – Qantas chief executive Vanessa Hudson is showing the market that she too will home in on the markets that deliver the biggest returns.
