Coming to America, go ahead given for Virgin America flights

Sir Richard Branson, founder of the virgin group of companies, has been given the go ahead to launch a new Virgin America airline. The inaugural flight will take off from the operations home base in San Francisco to New Yorks JFK airport by mid-summer although no date has been yet confirmed.

The go ahead was finally confirmed after nearly 18 months of negotiations between Virgin and the US competition authorities, a further condition of approval was that Sir Branson limited his interest in the new venture to 25% with the remaining share being owned by US investment banks.

Within the first year of startup, Virgin America is aiming to offer flights to 10 cities within the US including Washington, Las Vegas and San Diego growing to 30 destinations by 2012. Further routes under consideration for future operations currently include Boston, Orlando, Atlanta and New Orleans.

Virgin America hopes to build on the reputation of the virgin group as well as providing a service that betters the conventional US carriers, part of the new operation will be the inclusion of first class cabins on the new services.