As of this morning, Virgin America has disappeared from America’s flight schedules, airports, apps, ads and websites as Alaska Airlines completes the process of absorbing the airline it bought two years ago.
In fact, the only place you’ll find the iconic brand will be on the inside and outside of the airline’s Airbus fleet, since it will take until late next year for all the planes to be redecorated. In fact, at points between, fliers may see Alaska-painted planes with Virgin interiors.
Alaska says it expected an uneventful transition, which it had been rehearsing for months. All airport signage and all the electronics and systems were swapped overnight. The airline hopes to emulate the relative ease with which USAir was wrapped into American, not the chaos that followed the merger of Continental and United.
Some aspects of transitions get easier over the years: When American absorbed TWA, there were far more fixed signs to be replaced; today most of the airport signage is on monitors that need only a change of program.
Virgin’s last two flights under its own name took place last night, carrying fan trips from SFO to LAX and one in the opposite direction.
