Virgin America was the most innovative airline in the world at the time of its launch and time in the skies, Being the first airline to offer Fleet - Wide Wi-fi, Netflix onboard, On - demand food and drinks and of course the signature pink and purple mood lighting. It was headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area city of Burlingame, and operated domestic flights to major U.S. cities, primarily from hubs at San Francisco and Los Angeles as well as a smaller focus city operation at Love Field in Dallas. To know how awesome Virgin America was and why it was destroyed you need to know the history, Virgin America began selling tickets in July 2007. On August 8, 2007 the airline made its inaugural New York and Los Angeles to San Francisco flights — the aircraft was named "Air Colbert", after comedian Stephen Colbert. In December 2007, C. David Cush replaced Reid as CEO of the airline. From the beginning of operations, Virgin America reported losses, beginning with $270 million in its first month, until the third quarter of 2010, when it achieved its first profit of $7.5 million. On May 21, 2009, Virgin America became the first U.S. airline to offer Wi-Fi access via Gogo Inflight Internet on every flight. Between November 10, 2009, and January 15, 2010, the airline offered free WiFi with a subsidy from Google. On December 17, 2014, Virgin America announced that it would offer faster fleet-wide ATG-4 in-flight WiFi service from Gogo, with speeds three times faster than the first generation system.

The first time I took a Virgin Flight was January 4th, 2014 From Chicago o' hare - Los Angeles - Seattle. I instantly fell in love with the airline, When the company was bought out I was devastated, i was just hoping they would keep the two airlines separate but obviously this wasn't the case, Alaska Airlines took a lot of the Virgin Feel away by retrofitting the airbus fleet getting rid of a bunch of Virgin America's Routes that they had before the merger that benefitted people in the bay area, Los Angeles, Dallas love - field, etc. I do not know where this petition is going to go but I would like to see Virgin America Have its own experiences and routes but still be owned by Alaska because technically they are the parent company of Virgin America. 

 

In March 2010, Virgin America announced its intention to start flying to Toronto from Los Angeles and San Francisco, making it the airline's first international destination. Following the Department of Transportation's approval of Virgin America's proposal to fly to Canada, international service began with flights to Toronto Pearson International Airport on June 29, 2010. However, due to high operating costs, response from competitors, slower growth than anticipated, and higher demand for Dallas/Fort Worth, Virgin America terminated Toronto service on April 6, 2011. Virgin America began its service to Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport in December 2010, and continued until after the repeal of the Wright Amendment in October 2014, when the airline leased two gates and established a focus city at Dallas Love Field and enhanced the number of connecting destinations. As a result, Virgin America transported almost 31,000 passengers through Dallas Love Field in the first month, achieving 3.58% market share at Dallas Love Field.

Virgin America announced in January 2011 a firm order for sixty new Airbus A320 aircraft, including thirty new Airbus A320neos, that would be delivered starting in 2016, as a formal expansion of an initial commitment made by Richard Branson at the Farnborough Airshow in July 2010, though in November 2012 the airline deferred delivery of the aircraft to 2020. In April 2011, Virgin America's hub at San Francisco International Airport relocated to the newly remodeled Terminal 2, sharing the gates with American Airlines. In late October 2011, the airline migrated to Sabre's global distribution system (GDS) that handles reservations, frequent-flier accounts, flight operations data and crew scheduling. Difficulties with the changeover sparked widespread customer complaints, due to early technical malfunctions surrounding the program. On December 12, 2012, Virgin America opened their first airport lounge, the Virgin America Loft, at Los Angeles International Airport.

Virgin America had its first public offering at the NASDAQ stock exchange on November 14, 2014, selling 13.3M shares to raise $307 million for the company.

A number of airlines interested in a takeover of Virgin America approached the airline in late 2015, prompting Virgin America to correspond with an undisclosed financial adviser about how and if to proceed with a sale. Alaska Air Group and JetBlue Airways Corporation were the two most interested companies to make offers to purchase the airline from Virgin Group. In December 2015, Alaska was interested at $44.75 per share, before JetBlue manifested its interest in February 2016. A bidding war ensued culminating on March 31 and April 1 at $57 per share, 47% higher than the day's closure at $38.9. On April 4, 2016, Alaska Air Group announced that it had agreed to buy Virgin America for $2.6 billion. Including debt and aircraft leases, the transaction was worth approximately $4 billion.[3 Had the merger agreement been terminated by Virgin America, they would have been contractually obligated to pay Alaska Air Group a termination fee equal to $78.5 million.

Virgin America's founder Richard Branson expressed disappointment with the merger between Alaska Airlines and the airline he founded. In July 2016, Virgin America's shareholders approved the merger, leaving the approval by the United States Department of Justice as the only foreseeable hurdle. In September 2016, a lawsuit was filed against Alaska Airlines by consumers to block the merger between the two carriers, which the Alaska Air Group settled in court in December 2016. Subsequently, the Department of Justice approved the merger, which was completed on December 14. Following the acquisition, the former chief financial officer of Alaska Airlines, Peter Hunt, became the president of Virgin America, while the former chief operating officer and president of Alaska Airlines, Ben Minicucci, became the chief executive officer.

Virgin America became the launch customer for the Airbus A321neo, with the airline placing a firm order for 10 aircraft through leasing company GE Capital Aviation Services. The first A321neo was delivered in Hamburg to Virgin America and entered service on May 31, 2017; a total of five A321neos were delivered to Virgin in 2017 and five in 2018. In early February 2017, Alaska Air Group said it was working with GE on an arrangement where it would not take delivery of all 10 ordered jets, in favor of keeping a predominantly Boeing fleet. A presentation given by Alaska Airlines' chief financial officer in March 2017 indicated that Alaska would take delivery of all 10 leased A321neos, and would absorb and operate Virgin America's existing A319 and A320 fleet through at least 2024.

As part of the merger, some of Virgin's amenities would be integrated into Alaska's product. As Alaska Group was licensing the Virgin brand from Virgin Group, Branson indicated a willingness to relaunch the airline after the Virgin America brand was retired.

Virgin America made its final revenue flight under its callsign "Redwood" on January 10, 2018. The next day, on January 11, 2018, the Federal Aviation Administration issued a single operating certificate for a combined Alaska Airlines and Virgin America.

Virgin America flights continued to operate using Virgin America aircraft, crew, and brand name until April 25, 2018, when the airlines merged into the same passenger service system. The final Virgin America revenue departure was Flight 1948 at 9:32 PM, traveling from the airline's San Francisco headquarters to its other hub in Los Angeles, while the true final Virgin America departure was an employee charter operating as Flight 1947 from Los Angeles to San Francisco, which departed at 9:35 PM and operated under Virgin America's original "Redwood" callsign. Overnight, the customer-facing portions of the company (including flight numbers, website, and airport check-in kiosks) were converted to use the Alaska Airlines brand.

From April 25, 2018, passengers could only see the Alaska Airlines brand online and in airports, and virginamerica.com would redirect to alaskaair.com. Prior to the brand cutover, livery repainting of Virgin America's Airbus aircraft began in January 2018. Additionally, the interiors of the Airbus aircraft underwent refitting with seats similar to those in Alaska's Boeing aircraft from September 2018, in another project expected to take several months to complete, with the first aircraft refit and unveiled in early 2019. The last plane wearing the Virgin America livery, the one that operated Flight 1948, was repainted in Alaska Airlines livery on June 2, 2019. Following the completion of the repainting of Virgin America's aircraft, virginamerica.com instead redirected to Virgin Group's website virgin.com rather than to alaskaair.com, and Virgin America's social media profiles, such as its Facebook, Twitter and YouTube were subsequently either merged with those of Alaska Airlines, had their accounts closed, or otherwise had their content largely removed.

Virgin America's frequent-flyer program was Elevate, which allowed passengers to earn 5 points for every dollar spent on a flight's base fare, which excluded taxes and other fees. The program was discontinued on January 1, 2018. Elevate members were given the option to manually convert Elevate points into Alaska Airlines' Mileage Plan miles until January 31, 2018, with any remaining Elevate points automatically converted by February 8, 2018.

Following the discontinuation of Elevate in January 2018, flights operated by Virgin America continued to earn credit on Alaska Airlines' Mileage Plan and the frequent flyer programs of partner airlines (including Hawaiian Airlines‘ HawaiianMiles, Emirates Skywards, Singapore Airlines’ KrisFlyer, or Virgin Australia's Velocity Frequent Flyer) until Virgin America was integrated into Alaska Airlines on April 25, 2018.

 

***** Most of this is from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_America *****