KLMCityHopper wrote: "This week, the Virgin Group announced that the chance of selecting the Embraer aircraft is greater than before. Virgin Blue selected this aircraft, since it believes that future growth is vital for the airline to survive in the future, yet instead of flying the more populare routes, the 190 will fly the less dense routes, thus feeding the larger 737 aircraft. It is doubtable if this will work, since the main low cost sector is point to point, instead of the hub-and-spoke system used by larger airlines. Virgin`s choice is not that shocking, since jetBlue announced earlier this year that they too would select this aircraft. Virgin Blue will be one of the fwe low cost airlines flying with a duel fleet."
I would suspect that KLMCityhopper is not familiar with Virgin Blue's operation, which in many ways is similar in Australia to that of jetBlue in the USA. Virgin Blue is in reality a network carrier with some of the aspects of a LCC: from my home city of Hobart it offers connecting flights (with checked-through baggage facilities) to many cities, and competes with both Qantas, a full-service carrier, and Jetstar, a real LCC whose model is Ryanair.
Having a second model of aircraft would enable the carrier to operate a better service, with better frequency and more connection options, to many secondary centres, where the 737-800 might be too large.
rerj37
fftopic: But any idea how is Jetstar marketing verses Virgin Blue.