Virgin Cutting Back But Why?

If you have traveled this summer you might have noticed that airlines like Virgin America are cutting back on their non-stop flights. A couple of years ago Virgin added Portland as a new non-stop destination from SFO. We were in heaven, we no longer had to pay 4 times the cost to fly to Eugene and we were gaining mileage with our preferred airline. Sadly, Virgin America like many airlines started cutting back in the Spring. Virgin alone cut 17 cities from it’s non-stop network. While that sounds like a deep cut, that doesn’t compare to the fact the cut over 150 non-stop flights from the remaining destinations.

Several years back Virgin had about 3-5 non-stop flights to Portland and today that number is down to 1. Well I wouldn’t actually say one, maybe 2/3’s. Today the only non-stop flight between SFO & PDX is 8am flight and a after 10pm flight. Now if you are 20-30 something, those are doable hours but for a young family or even seniors, that’s just not gonna happen. That raises a better question, is Virgin trying to push out a certain kind of clientele? I know it’s supposed to cool and chic airline but really, would they have a cajones to be that shady?

For now, we like many others have to choose the alternatives, which sadly for us, it's back to EUG.