Virgin vows to poach BA customers

VIRGIN Atlantic plans to steal £100 million worth of British Airways’ premium business with the launch of its Upper Class product. 

The carrier has spent three years and £50 million developing the cabin, which includes what it says is the world’s largest flatbed.

It will roll out the 202cm-long bed on its flagship Heathrow to New York route to coincide with BA’s retirement of Concorde in October.

Sir Richard Branson said: “We have spent £50 million on this product, but we think we can take £100 million off BA in the first 12 months. We are estimating 10% of its business-class passengers will switch and between 4% and 5% of first-class passengers.”

He added the airline has already started targeting corporate travel managers to switch policies to Virgin and is gearing up for a multi-million pound TV advertising campaign.

The launch of the seat, which flips over to form the bed, comes just three years after the last relaunch of the Upper Class product which came in for criticism because the seat was so close to the cabin floor. Virgin claims the bed is one foot wider than both BA’s first class and business-class beds.

Sir Richard said: “We were so secretive about this launch because we wanted to see BA continue to waste millions promoting and installing its Club World bed.”