Does Virgin America need lie-flat seats to compete?

Four of the 8 seats in Virgin America’s first class section (Photo: Chris McGinnis)

Last week Virgin America CEO David Cush made an off-hand remark about the carrier’s first class seats during an earnings call that turned into a Bloomberg headline and story.

What followed was an unexpected tidal wave of commentary (most of it derisive) about the carrier’s strategy and its future.

I know that there are many Virgin America regulars among TravelSkills readers– some of whom fly up front. It would be great to hear what you all think in the comments below!

Here’s the headline:

And here’s David Cush’s quote:

And now for a sampling of the chatter on Twitter, Facebook and elsewhere.

Rafat Ali, who runs travel website Skift, chimed in with this:

Here’s what travel analyst Henry Harteveldt of Atmosphere Research had to say in a post on Airways News: 

“It is great that other airlines are finally investing in product on these routes and following our lead, but we believe our First Class product can go head to head with anyone out there in the U.S. – and our continued [per seat] premium in the most competitive routes in the nation (like LAX-JFK and SFO-JFK) shows that.  In addition, as David [Cush] mentioned, we have a very different First Class product, in that it is an exclusive 8-seat cabin and we have that experience on ALL our flights, as opposed to a tiny percentage of a fleet…And as David noted, for day-time flying, which is what we mainly do, at present, most people want a really comfortable seat, not necessarily a lie flat. All of that said, we are not standing still on product. The recent comments have been taken a bit out of context, as we’re continually updating our product with smaller enhancements…”