Virgin Australia Becomes One Domestic & International Airline

[Virgin Australia]

Today we have officially launched our international airlines V Australia and Pacific Blue under our new brand, Virgin Australia.
The establishment of one brand and identity for Virgin Australia’s domestic and international operations means that from today, travellers will experience:


• New Virgin Australia signage at key international ports
• New-look travel documents
• One Guest Contact Centre number for both the domestic and international operations
• One consolidated Virgin Australia website for both the domestic and international operations.


We have also today unveiled a new brand and livery for our joint venture with the Government of Samoa, Polynesian Blue. The Prime Minister of Samoa, the Hon. Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi, announced that the country’s national airline will now operate as Virgin Samoa (information of the launch can be found here).
Virgin Australia group of airlines CEO John Borghetti said that having both the domestic and international airlines operating under the Virgin brand was one of the company’s most significant achievements this year.
“The Virgin Australia name enables us to tap into the huge power of the Virgin brand around the world – a brand that signifies style, innovation, quality, value for money and the best service. “The new identity has been designed with a clean and contemporary look and feel that encapsulates our company’s repositioning as the airline of choice for all market segments. “Now that our international airlines are all operating under the Virgin brand, our focus is on redesigning the product in the air to ensure a first-rate travel experience across all of our airlines. We look forward to revealing the new designs in the first half of 2012”, Mr Borghetti said.


Should you be travelling through the transition period, Virgin Australia will be implementing directional signage and putting on extra Ground Crew to assist you. There will not be any changes to guest travel bookings as a result of the launch of these new brands.

***

We have also launched a new website that consolidates our former brands, we look forward to hearing your feedback!

 

[Noob]

The website is so pretty!

 

[Blackswan]

Love the look of the new website!

 

[stuartfaz]

The website is fantastic, was not expecting that.

 

[DGW]

Just some feedback, logging in to my Velocity account via the "Velocity Login" button doesn't work - it gives me the message "Please contact Virgin Australia Airlines".

Logging in via velocityrewards.com.au works however.

 

[Justchecking]

FYI the new website doesnt work well with iPads. If I chose Sydney as a departure city it only gives me the options of mel, per, bne and drw as destinations. One would have thought someone would have tested this out given the proliferation of iPads and iPhones amoung the general populace. Probably more of those will be trying to use the website than Microsoft users.

 

[serfty]

Love the look of the new website!

The website is fantastic, was not expecting that.

So subjective this.

Pretty is nice, until you need to use it.:evil:

The new website is impractical, just like the horrible recent JQ and NZ redesigns.

Only the top ~30% of the front page content appears on loading and one has to scroll down to see more.

The old site was far more compact and useful. For a look at a far more practical sites, check the Velocity Frequent Flyer | Frequent Flyer Program of Virgin Australia web site where everything available on the home page is nicely packaged in a petite widescreen layout.

 

[MadFairlane]

Website is awesome...

 

[Virgin Australia]

FYI the new website doesnt work well with iPads. If I chose Sydney as a departure city it only gives me the options of mel, per, bne and drw as destinations. One would have thought someone would have tested this out given the proliferation of iPads and iPhones amoung the general populace. Probably more of those will be trying to use the website than Microsoft users.

Lots of testing continues!

So subjective this.

Pretty is nice, until you need to use it.:evil:

The new website is impractical, just like the horrible recent JQ and NZ redesigns.

Only the top 30% of the front page appears on loading and one has to scroll down to see more.

The old site was far more compact and useful.

For a look at a far more practical site, check the [-] Qantas - flights to Australia, New Zealand, Africa and Asia. Book airfares at qantas.com. [/-] Velocity Frequent Flyer | Frequent Flyer Program of Virgin Australia web site where everything available on the home page is nicely packaged in a petite widescreen layout.

Will take that feedback on board Serfty, bear in mind you might struggle to book a Virgin Australia flight there....

 

[Cruiser Elite]

+1 serfty - and plenty gliches on the sire also - YES YES I understand first day - but surely you would undertake rigorous testing prior to launch.

I tried to select seats for PE booking on 26/12 - impossible - called call centre - should be able to do online I am told.

Cannot - hmmm seems strange - let me do it for you - oh yes I see - it doesn't work does it - OK I will put in report for you.

Hey VA - you sure your mob didn't commission your new partners over there at SQ to design your site?

 

[lazybones1987]

The new website is impractical, just like the horrible recent JQ and NZ redesigns.

That's more likely subjective.

When I visit the page, I can certainly see at least 65% of the site (3 scrolls to view the entire content, content that I wouldn't be interested in anyway).

I would certainly not call the new website impractical. It focuses on the main functions of a user (Search, book & manage my flights). Are you unable to do that?

 

[Fruitcake]

My attempt to add/change seat allocation resulted in me being asked to "Please wait while we process your payment. It may take up to 45 seconds." Obviously the 'system' simply pulled up the wrong waitscreen (presumably it should say 'Please wait while we retrieve your booking' or something similar) but it's still a bit odd!

 

[Cruiser Elite]

My attempt to add/change seat allocation resulted in me being asked to "Please wait while we process your payment. It may take up to 45 seconds." Obviously the 'system' simply pulled up the wrong waitscreen (presumably it should say 'Please wait while we retrieve your booking' or something similar) but it's still a bit odd!

Exactamundo - and if you keep hitting tabs you can go around in cirles non stop which is what I did to amuse myself whilst CA was doing seat selection for me - not being critical - just sayin'.

 

[aurora]

Will take that feedback on board Serfty, bear in mind you might struggle to book a Virgin Australia flight there....

hahahaha....

 

[Fruitcake]

A little bit more playing and I must admit the changes look great but don't really solve the issues I have with functionality of the site - if anything the 'booking engine' portion now feels even more divorced from the look and feel of the rest of the site. And it still remains the case that when you end up at http://book.virginaustralia.com/ whether from Velocity or from executing a fare search on the main website you're 'in exile' - nothing you can click takes you back to Virgin Australia | Flights, holidays, hotels & cars and you need to re-enter the URL manually (or a bookmark/favourite). This in particular is what drives me nuts - you can call up your list of bookings via the Velocity 'bookings' function but as soon as you click 'view' there's no way out. You have to reload velocityrewards.com.au and start all over again.

I'm guessing most of these changes have to wait until the Sabre transition occurs next year. And still no international multicity - for the same reason I guess!

 

[notzac]

Very pretty, but not massively functional as yet it would seem. Still two booking systems being used (have you guys decided which airline code to stick with? ). Trying to book MEL-BNE returns search results for MEL-ADL. Trying to log in to Velocity results in an error (per above).

A positive - you can finally search for flights by typing in the IATA airport code!

One hopes that there will be substantially more testing and adjustments to the site in the coming days...

 

[serfty]

...
Will take that feedback on board Serfty, bear in mind you might struggle to book a Virgin Australia flight there....

The www.velocityrewards.com.au site currently is a good example how how a front page content should be as well.

I hope there's no plans to 'enhance' that one as well.

 

[oz_mark]

I am sure I read somewhere that the Velocity site was going to be integrated into the main site at some point. Or maybe I just dreamt it!

 

[Fruitcake]

The www.velocityrewards.com.au site currently is a good example how how a front page content should be as well.

I agree to a point - one major gripe for me is that if I arrive at the Velocity site when already logged in, I'm not given the option from the front page to review my bookings. Seems like a fairly major omission for a frequent flyer program, given that those who frequently fly might also be frequently looking to view where we'll be flying next week!

If you arrive at the QF home page already logged in you get the little 'online services' drop down box which I think is a good compromise to keeping everything on the landing page without wasting too much screenspace.

 

[Robert K]

ya everything's way too big. a print designer must have done this.