Grounded: Virgin Express
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 5 ก.ค. 2024
- This episode of Grounded takes a look at Virgin Express, formed from the ashes of the bankrupt Trans European Airways as EuroBelgian Airlines, EBA would begin to develop a pan-European airline presence of its own as history looked set to repeat itself. Richard Branson's Virgin Group acquired EuroBelgian Airlines and rebranded them as Virgin Express. Attempting to bring over the low-cost, low-fare model from the United States, Virgin Express had several dices with bankruptcy and failed expansion attempts which would ultimately see the airline merge with the de facto Belgian flag carrier, SN Brussels Airlines to become Brussels Airlines - arguably, the best possible outcome.
Useful Timestamps
00:00 Intro
00:24 EuroBelgian Airlines
03:30 Air Provence
04:07 EBA Express
04:51 Air Provence Charter
06:44 Virgin Takeover
09:03 Virgin Express
11:19 Expansion & Widebodies
13:17 Sabre Airways & Virgin Sun
14:23 Virgin Express Ireland
14:41 Virgin Express France
15:02 Ryanair merger
15:40 Heavy losses and cutbacks
18:11 Restructuring & Retrenchment
20:28 New Image & New Direction
22:39 Sabena Collapses
25:27 Failed International Expansion
28:51 Trouble at Home
31:35 SNBA Merger Talks
34:10 Brussels Airlines
35:58 So What Went Wrong?
39:01 Outro
Many apologies for the delay with this episode, it has been a nightmare from day one with several script re-drafts, audio re-recordings and several days of lost production due to illness - add to that a puppy and a busy flying schedule... Hopefully this episode is worth the wait, I hope you all manage to stick around until the end, I had to trim over 10 minutes of audio from the episode in order to bring it in just under 40 minutes and so far is the longest Grounded episode to date.
I mention several airlines in this episode which have been covered by previous Grounded episodes, further information is available here;
Futura International Airways
Founded in 1989 and headquartered on the Balearic Island of Mallorca as a joint venture between the Irish flag carrier Aer Lingus, Banco Santander and several other parties. Futura would operate a large fleet of Boeing 737s including the 737-400 and 737-800 as well as become the first European operator of the Boeing 737-900ER beating the UK's XL Airways to the title by mere days with both airlines collapsing within days of each other...
• Grounded: Futura Inter...
Eastwind Airlines
Eastwind and their cool bumblebee from Trenton and later Greensboro tried to emulate the Southwest Airlines low-fare model with a small fleet of 737s...
• Grounded: Eastwind Air...
Virgin Sun
Virgin Sun was the short lived sister airline to Virgin Atlantic which operated from 1999 until November 2001. Known for their bright yellow aircraft, cruise like atmosphere, interesting meal choices and tight seat pitches...
• Grounded: Virgin Sun
Sabre Airways
Sabre Airways was an airline launched in controversy, it's foundation was ill timed with the downfall of Ambassador Airways, it's connection to the infamous Peach Air was well known and despite rebranding & relaunching itself it's successor would fail spectacularly...
• Grounded: Sabre Airways
Excel Airways
Following their successful re-branding from Sabre Airways, Excel Airways would grow to become one of Europe's largest travel companies. This episode looks at how Excel grew and how the seeds of their own destruction were sewn...
• Grounded: Excel Airways
XL Airways
After a management buyout the XL Leisure Group was the UK's 3rd largest travel company and things looked good but all was not as it seemed....
• Grounded: XL Airways
Excalibur Airways
The first episode of "Grounded" looked at Excalibur Airways, a very promising independent charter airline which following a takeover and mismanagement ended up grounded for good.
• GROUNDED: Excalibur Ai...
I really appreciate any comments and feedback on this or other episodes as well as suggestions for future episodes. Believe me, if I say that your airline is "on the list", it really is :) Check back to see future episodes or better yet, subscribe to catch them as they land and as always, thanks for watching!
I have a website!
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#GroundedSeries #VirginExpress #EuroBelgianAirlines
Since the episode is ready now and is already several months late I thought that I shouldn't keep you all waiting until the weekend so here we go, I hope it was worth the wait :)
Another great video! Great to see you back after so long! 👍✈️😀
Thank you, I'm glad to be back :)
It good to know that you are doing Grounded series again
Another great episode, Congratulations! Thanks again for including some of the postcards from my collection!
Thank you and thanks for sending them to me :)
I flew Virgin Express in 2000 from LHR to BRU and was very impressed. During the very short flight the crew still served drinks and a snack.
Great! Unfortunately one would be hard pushed to find that level of service on some scheduled carriers these days :/
Let’s go! He is back!
Thanks :)
Great Vid as always!!!!
Thank you :)
Another brilliant bit of research sir!!. Really enjoy these stories.. it still amazes me how complex these Airline companies are from start to finish!!
Thank you, much appreciated :) Yes indeed, it seems that nothing is ever really "open and shut" ;)
keep it up! amazing as always
Thank you that is much appreciated :)
Blast from the Past!
That's the channel motto ;)
@@ExpoAviationdidn't realise it was the Channel intro 😂
Just know this is gonna be good, it's great to see a new Grounded upload
Thank you, much appreciated :)
That was such a great video Phil, thank you, the research must be enormous. Can’t wait for the next one.
Thanks Tom, much appreciated :)
Great video. How long until the Monarch and Thomas Cook episodes?
Thank you, I honestly couldn't say but rest assured I am still scavenging notes aplenty on both :)
You need to do a video on SkyBus.Higher initial capitalization than Jetblue!
I've a partially done script on them, as is usually the case nothing is "open and shut" and I get bogged down in details and following little nuggets of info.
Wow, what an interesting episode about Virgin Express!
My dad was a former pilot for Virgin Express and subsequently Brussels airlines so it was nice to hear the history of Virgin.
I've always taken an interest in the airline, having flown on it as a child.
I would like to write out a simular history (for private use) so I would like to know where you found the information.
Thanks in advance and regards from Belgium!
Hi! Thanks for your comment :) My research was mainly through the use of French/German/Dutch Wikipedia's (which had more in-depth information than the English language one) combined with articles that I found through Flight Global and Flight International as well as fleet information from the airfleets and planespotters websites. Good luck :)
@@ExpoAviation thank you so mush for the information!!!
Another excellent video as always! Hows the return back to working in the skies been? I always keep my eyes (or ears) open on my travels in case you're working on my flight!! 😂
Thank you :) I'm very happy to be back in the air again though we are getting worked hard, harder than in the olden days. If you do find yourself on one of my flights please do say hello :)
Hey! quick question, is the X in your channel logo a throwback to Excel Airways?
Hiya, yes it is. Considering how much they stiffed me on my wages during the bankruptcy I figured I'd use the X ;)
Can you make a video about Ted and Song?
Yeah I will be covering them when I do some "airlines within airlines" in the near future :)
Where did the l1011/DC10 operate?
Information is very limited on that, the widebody (along with the A320s) were drafted in to cover a shortage of pilots (the airline was expanding that rapidly they couldn't get pilots on-line quick enough). It is my understanding that they were used to "consolidate" two 737 flights into one rather than to sell extra capacity with them operating out of Brussels.
Can you do more non european airlines? I.e Japan Air System, Canadian Airlines
Yes I have quite a few scripts in progress for airlines around the world :)
Any chances on a video on either ALM or InselAir?
Yep, they are on "the list" :)
@@ExpoAviation Awesome. Those were my most flown airlines growing up! Especially Insel.