Things in the Sky

Well, yesterday was pretty exciting with that slot swap between US Airways and Delta, and I do have plenty to say about that, but I’m going to have to to save that for tomorrow.

I am going to be attending the National Business Travel Association conference in San Diego in a few days, and I have been trying to arrange a few interviews. I contacted Abby Lunardini, Virgin America’s Director of Corporate Communications, and she offered an interview with the company’s CEO, David Cush. Sadly, though, he was only available the day I’m flying back home. But, Abby worked her magic and I was able to score an interview on Tuesday! So thanks to Abby for arranging this and thanks to David for willing to give me some of his time.

Overall, I was very pleased with the way the interview went. I was pretty nervous, but I think I did well. I think I could have tried to go a little further with my questions about Virgin’s investors at the end, though. David’s answers were pretty interesting – take a look at this post from Cranky’s BNET blog, and then listen to the podcast.

Speaking of the airline’s investors, I did get in touch with the nice PR folks at a Alaska about Virgin’s investors, as they’ve been the most vocal about the company’s citizenship. In an e-mail reply I was told:

Our position has not changed on this issue. We believe there needs to be a transparent review process by the DOT to answer questions of Virgin America’s U.S. citizenship…Without this transparency, Alaska still has concerns about the status of Virgin America’s ownership.

Anyway, you can listen to the interview here!