grt2106

Have you noticed VX flights are almost 50-75% higher than last year in just about all markets?

I know last year flights were particularly cheap, but this seems considerably heftier.

landonjh

I noticed the same... I used to be able to fly from DFW to SFO for $89 or $99 and not its upwards of $160!

eleVAted

Now that passengers in the DFW area know VX is there they can raise the prices. They know passengers will pay the 20-50 dollar difference to fly Virgin as opposed to American in your case. They are not a profitably airline and if you like flying them then you should support the fare increase. It just business. Those flying ipods dont pay for themselves with $99 fares

VXCabinCrew

Our flights are running very full, so we can command higher fares. It's basic supply & demand. DFW fares were lower last year because we were new in the market and used low fares to attract new customers. Our DFW flights have been doing well, so you most likely won't see low fares like that again. With the cost of fuel and the expense of operating our tech-saavy planes, we can't make a profit off of $99 fares. Try flying on Tuesdays or Saturdays, which are the slowest days of the week and therefore offer the lowest fares.

grt2106

I'm not as concerned with the cost per a single flight, as much as the very large price difference that has appeared on just about ALL VX flights.

In the past 5 years or so I'd say the prices jumped 10% per year or so.... now this year are seeing a number far greater.

VXCabinCrew

Well, our operating costs have jumped in the past 5 years. Fuel prices are draining our resources. Our early planes are getting older, therefore more expense needs to go into maintaining them. Five years ago, we had 500 or so employees, now we have more than 3,000, so labor costs have gone up. In lieu of adding additional fees, ticket prices need to go up. And, fortunately, people are willing to pay for our product over the other airlines.

GO_CAT

Check out the new DCA "introductory" pricing. $199! Want to take a bag and your up for $450 round trip! And its going out as VX1, most carriers have their flagship service as the "1" flight number.

I dont know if people are willing to pay huge money for VX flights? They have a lot of "last minute" travel sales, seat maps are empty months out, soon as they drop the price, presto! they can fill it.

PDX seat maps looking as little light...

BearX220

If you think $400 is "huge money" for a roundtrip transcon, you're living in a dream world. $400 was the rough floor for a transcon ticket 20 years ago.

I don't always understand VX pricing, it's either crazy cheap or too high a premium over the UA/AA/DL cartel, but they're not making money and things have to change. I'm glad they're more able to command a premium versus the dinosaur carriers, because they're a better product.

bubbashow

This is Flyertalk. Don't expect 95%+ of the people posting on here to have any business acumen. Anyone that thinks a $99 trans-con is sustainable is living in a dream. I'm personally glad that airlines are finally able to sustain fares to match costs. Grow up. Pay, or don't fly.

joetro

I too got some good $99 deals LAX to DFW. Yes, prices have increased on VA but so too on all other airlines. I'm still paying less money and getting more amenities than on legend carriers. Unfortunately, now that I'm moving back to DFW, it's going to be a lot of AA. The new Platinum Credit Card helps fare sting a bit with free bags.

Andaz5

No it was not... I started flying in 1984.... many good deals from SFO to the east coast from $89 each way... even paid $149 each-way to Paris a few times, it was easier to be upgraded to 1st class when it was really was 1st class, your info in incorrect.

AA_EXP09

Even in January I was able to get similar fares to SAT/AUS/IAH on AA.
Now, it's a different story....

Mike_K

I fly ORD to LAX monthly. For two people in MC my fair went from $359 round trip to $600 and I believe it was March that I noticed the change. Quite honestly, it's still worth it. Have their costs gone up this much? Probably not but standard business practice is to entice people into using your product at a lower price and then raise the price once you got them hooked. Now it's not good business to come out and admit this so I'm sure they're not going to hop on here and agree but honestly, it's a plan that's worked.

I can't fly UA, I can't fly Delta... The antiquated planes, the "old" way of doing business... I hopped on my first Virgin flight January of this year and will be flying Virgin whenever I can from here on out. The cost difference between them and the cheapest fair is more than offset by the experience of flying a nice cabin. We look forward to our 4 hour flights now. They're relaxing experiences where we eat, watch movies and occasionally get bumped around my turbulent air.

There is one aspect that's just not acceptable though: the website. I almost canceled my first flight with Virgin because their website was not working and weeks later it STILL wasn't working. After researching it some more I found out that it hadn't been working for MONTHS. 6 months later and it's STILL not working consistently. This is just not acceptable. How does a business this size, in this industry allow such a dismal user experience to go on for such a prolonged amount of time? There is NO problem that takes this long to resolve. It's as if they don't assign it much priority which is scary.

It's not even as if they block off non-working parts of the site in an attempt to prevent people from getting frustrated. No, instead they leave it all up and 80% of the time it doesn't work, 20% of the time it does. If it's not going to work all the time then it doesn't work at all and it shouldn't be up there.

So then you expect them to at least have their call center in order but no... You sit on hold for an hour and then get transferred to Indonesia or somewhere else where the person barely understands you, you barely understand them, they have no concept or understanding of American colloquialisms and you just want to be like... how is this company still in existence? How can I trust this company to properly maintain a plane when in my 6 months of dealing with them they can't even get a website to work properly. It's uncanny. In the words of Ron Burgundy: "It bottles the mind".

There's a big banner in LAX advertising Xerox as the handler of Virgin's call center (or something like that) and every time I see it I get the urge to call them and tell them they're doing it wrong.

At the end of the day though, most people won't use VA's site and the overwhelming majority of people are embracing the experience of flying VA. So I'm waiting for their IPO and this is a company I fully plan on pouncing on when the stock is available. It's nice to see a company embracing a business model that revolves around adding more service (albeit at a cost) rather than playing "how many souls can we shoe-horn into the A320".

grt2106

I think a good business model should involve turning profit- I accept that to do this they may need to increase fares, but to the prices I've seen now- it's not enticing to fly.

Do what you'd like with your money, but VX bleeds its investors in hopes one day they may push through to profitability, when that regretfully is determined by factors entirely outside the company's control. (Jet Fuel prices).

I do see a huge bump for them when the A320NEOs arrive. Yet still question without more and more investors how they can make it that far.

Mike_K

Totally agree and I believe they're still 24 - 48 months away from an IPO. Obviously some things need to change before that. They have the customer experience down and now they need to get the business end tidied up. They're selling a product that people want. But yeah, I'd hope the business end of things gets tied up in that time and I'd do my due diligence prior to buying. It's a stock I'll be watching though.

Also, for those complaining about price increases, keep in mind that MCS and F upgrades both got chopped in half.