It’s been over two years since Seattle-based Alaska Airlines announced plans to takeover Virgin America – a tactical decision which sometimes didn’t feel entirely thought out. It wasn’t until March 2017 that Alaska decided to discontinue the Virgin America brand and make it part of an expanded and (hopefully) improved Alaska Airlines.
But Virgin America is still flying – well, for now at least. Alaska has been slowly working through the thousands of tasks involved in merging the two airlines: combining loyalty programmes, co-locating airport functions, getting a single operators licence from the FAA, rewriting training manuals, negotiating contracts with flights attendants. You get the point – there’s a lot involved.
So while Virgin America doesn’t officially exist in the eyes of the FAA or IRS, it’s fleet of Airbus A320 aircraft are still to be painted in the Alaska livery, flight attendants still wear Virgin America uniforms and passengers are still served food in Virgin America branded flatware.
Oh, and one other thing – the (in)famous Virgin America safety video/safety dance is still shown. The video is generally well received but at four years old the demo is wearing thin for even irregular Virgin America flyers. If you’ve never had the opportunity to watch this innovative safety video, you can check it out below…
But with the video set to be retired in less than a week, it’s understandable that Virgin America flight attendants could be feeling just a little nostalgic. And that’s where this incredible flight attendant enters the spotlight.
Filmed on a Virgin America flight this week, the flight attendant impresses passengers with his dance skills as he does his own rendition of the Virgin America safety dance. The video which was caught on camera by a passenger and then shared on Twitter has been viewed more than 26,000 times in less than 24-hours.
Virgin America Safety Film being retired next week so our flight attendant danced it for us… ???#VXForever pic.twitter.com/DHYZ7xLceG
— ???☕️ (@hunterwalk) July 28, 2018
Earlier this year, Alaska said it had reached a tentative agreement with ex-Virgin America flight attendants. In the future, Virgin America FA’s will transition to the new Alaska uniform and start working alongside legacy Alaska flight attendants – the full transition is expected to be complete by next year.
Goodbye #VXSafetyDance
