Ready for Takeoff?

As of September, Maguire and his team had turned on the first big piece of the network and had the data centre and its monitoring tools up and running. HR, finance and flight operations applications were live. "The only thing left is the reservations system and our production website," Maguire says, knowing those are two critical pieces of the puzzle. The goal was to have them both in production by the end of this year.

Virgin America is planning to begin flying early next year, after it receives approval from both the Department of Transportation and the Federal Aviation Administration and most industry watchers expect a successful takeoff. "They're flying a very competitive route, and it'll be stiff competition," says John Kasarda, director of The Frank Hawkins Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise at the University of North Carolina. "But Virgin America will come off the blocks capturing a portion of the market and doing very well."

"Virgin America has an advantage right out of the gate because of the brand, which will get people on the first time," says The Boyd Group's Sieber. "The question is, do they have a product that can compete long term? That remains to be seen. At one time Pan Am had the most recognized brand in the industry, and that didn't keep them out of trouble.

"Don't get me wrong," Sieber continues, "if I were starting an airline, I'd certainly want to have that brand advantage.

"But I'd still use my ex-wife's money."

What's also up in the air is how the competition will respond. Legacy carriers, which have finally figured out that they can't compete on price, may be forced to improve the service that they've whittled away over the past five years. Some, like Delta, may put their emphasis elsewhere, like the Chinese market, leaving the domestic routes largely to the low-cost carriers.

JetBlue, no longer the new kid on the block, may invest further in the customer experience. Its wholly owned subsidiary recently won a US Federal Communications Commission auction for a very hot commodity - a slice of radio airwaves devoted to air-to-ground communication - that, if it gains approval by the FAA, could enable the company to provide Wi-Fi in the sky.

"It'll be interesting to see how JetBlue responds," says Harteveldt. "If Virgin sells meals on board, will JetBlue sell meals on board? If they go to a two-class service offering, will JetBlue go to a two-class service offering? JetBlue has marched to its own drum for six years, but you can't ignore the competition."

In fact, Virgin America has got many of its best ideas from its soon-to-be rivals, including what Pawlowski insists must be a guiding principle if the airline is to succeed: "Don't over-promise or under-deliver. You look at Southwest, they under-promise and over-deliver. Or look at JetBlue - there are a lot of fans here of JetBlue. We can learn from those airlines.

"It's a bit of a challenge because there are going to be expectations with a Virgin brand. But we hope to compete on value, the ability to customize the customer experience, and the bells and whistles of the more established airlines. Hopefully that adds up to a differentiated product that people will embrace."