Alaska Airlines knows that many folks are going to miss Virgin America, so they're trying their best to ease your worries—by copping some of Virgin America's signature style and reaching out to some Bay Area sports stars and teams.
After acquiring Virgin America in April 2016, Alaska Air was at first a bit cagey about how it would handle the brand's hallmarks, so as not to alienate Virgin's customer base. Now that we know that the Virgin brand will be retired in 2019, Alaska is making moves to incorporate some of Virgin America's more noteworthy amenities and intangibles, as opposed to trimming them down in order to reduce costs.
One such example is that Alaska Air will be looking to borrow a page from Virgin America's gate area design handbook, playing music in the gate areas as Virgin did, and adding mood lighting to all its planes in the company's signature blue replacing Virgin's purple, as the Motley Fool reports.
But Alaska Air is also looking to score big with San Francisco sports fans, as the Business Times tells us.
For starters, they partnered up with the Warriors' Kevin Durant, who will be helping spearhead some youth and education initiatives in the Bay Area. As well, the company just signed a deal with the San Francisco Giants, making them the team's official airline. As part of the deal, they unveiled a brand new plane design that incorporates the Giants' logo and team colors.
Of course, this deal also means that all the Virgin America-branded spots at AT&T Park will be replaced with Alaska Airline branding.
Going forward, we can definitely expect more of the same, and as Virgin's sunset approaches in two years, one employee of the soon-to-be-gone brand is sharing her "behind-the-scenes" experiences working as a flight attendant with the airline.
Travel + Leisure points us to Molly Choma, who has worked for Virgin America as both a flight attendant and as a photographer/graphic designer on the side. She started sharing photos of flight attendants and pilots as they went about their business on-and-off-duty, and now CNN has noticed her work as well.
The shots—many of which are cheekily tagged #TheSecretLifeOfVirgins—are gorgeous, and given how many have described Virgin America's impending end as "bittersweet," they carry a bit of poignant weight to them. If you want to see more and help pull yourself through this bittersweet symphony of pink- and purple-lit airplane cabins, then you can check out more of Choma's work on Instagram and Facebook.
Related: RIP Virgin America Airlines, Which Alaska Is Officially Killing Off In Two Years
