03/22/2021
𝗦𝘁𝗼𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗦𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗲 - 𝗩𝗶𝗿𝗴𝗶𝗻 𝗔𝘁𝗹𝗮𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗰 𝗔𝗶𝗿𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗥𝗶𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗱 𝗕𝗿𝗮𝗻𝘀𝗼𝗻
“𝘉𝘶𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘴 𝘰𝘱𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘶𝘯𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘣𝘶𝘴𝘦𝘴, 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦'𝘴 𝘢𝘭𝘸𝘢𝘺𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘨.” – 𝘙𝘪𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘥 𝘉𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘴𝘰𝘯.
In 1984, Richard Branson was stuck on a tarmac trying to leave Puerto Rico for the British Virgin Islands. His flight was grounded, and he’d been away from his girlfriend for three weeks. Needless to say, he was over it.
Branson walked to the back of the plane and asked for a chalkboard and a writing implement. He figured out how much it would cost to charter a plane to BVI — and how much it would cost each passenger if the expense were pooled. And then he went for it, walking up and down the aisles of the grounded airplane selling tickets. On the chalkboard he wrote, “$39 one way to BVI.” And that was Virgin Atlantic’s first flight.
″(When) we arrived in the BVI, somebody said ‘sharpen up your service a bit and you could be in the airline business,’” Branson recalled.
The next day, Branson — already a successful businessman — he decided to call Boeing when he got back to England to ask if he could buy a secondhand 747.
This story was told to the media by Branson in the 35 years Birthday of Virgin Airlines, downtown Los Angeles in 2019.
