I’m sure that you’re as shocked as I am that Sir Richard’s statement on Saturday is at variance with reality. I think the technical business term for this is “fiasco.” And I’m angry that it has so tainted the industry, not to mention given the FAA an excuse to regulate, if they wish to.
[Update a couple minutes later]
The real problem is “bad business.”
I think I even heard about a lawsuit at a point. Still the thing with Virgin, from my admittedly limited knowledge of them, is that they use their branding and marketing to enter wildly different new businesses all the time only to dump them overboard like a decade or less later for something completely different which they also promote with great zeal. I do not quite get how these businesses generate money. A lot of it supposedly is due to Branson’s great salesmanship but I never quite got it.
From the wiki:
“On Sunday 10 January 1954, British Overseas Airways Corporation Flight 781, a de Havilland DH.106 Comet 1 registered G-ALYP, took off from Ciampino Airport in Rome, Italy, en route to Heathrow Airport in London, England, on the final leg of its flight from Singapore. At about 10:51 GMT, the aircraft suffered an explosive decompression at altitude and crashed into the Mediterranean Sea, killing everyone on board. The accident aircraft G-ALYP was the third Comet built.”
Good thing they never let an airline industry happen.