Branson plans one-stop travel shop as Virgin Atlantic turns 40

As Virgin Atlantic Airways Ltd. celebrates its 40th anniversary, founder Richard Branson plans to more closely integrate the airline with his cruise ships and hotel businesses to offer travelers a one-stop shop. Branson said he would look to make the brands work more seamlessly, with people traveling on Virgin Voyages cruises getting airline loyalty points, while adding more hotels in the destinations the carrier flies to. “It’s something which we should have done fifty years ago,” the 73-year-old Branson said in an interview at the company’s hotel in Las Vegas on Monday. “We had all these different Virgin companies, it is pulling the Virgin companies together under one umbrella.” The upstart airline that took on British Airways back in the 1980s is now entering its fifth decade of service. Some of its innovations — from seat back entertainment screens to premium economy cabins — have been adopted widely, and in some cases more effectively, by rivals. Instead of attempting to compete with deep-pocketed Middle East carriers on hardware, Virgin plans to focus on its service and allowing customers to more seamlessly book across business units. Virgin brought its holidays brand into the airline business during the pandemic, and has rebadged it as Virgin Atlantic Holidays. The airline follows others such as British Airways in seeking to extract more money out of its holidays and loyalty business, with BA signaling at its latest earnings that it would combine the two units as both grow rapidly. <br/>