This was published 12 years ago
Virgin unveils new premium lounge to woo business travellers
By Andrew Heasley and aviation reporter
Virgin Australia's latest bid to lure Qantas' corporate travellers takes shape with the opening of Virgin's new 300-seat, 1220-square metre domestic lounge at Melbourne Airport.
It's the latest in cool and sleek-looking architecture — curved glass partitions and walls, white polished stone floors, translucent bars, funky furniture and internet connectivity — and is due to open for business and premium economy passengers on Tuesday.
The lounge is designed to complement the brand values of the airline's new aircraft livery, business class interiors, staff uniform and simplified fare structures the airline needs to grow its share of business and government travellers from 10 to 20 per cent.
Architect Tim Greer, a director of Tonkin, Zulaikha and Greer, has created a space that "flows", he said.
Leaf-shaped spotted-gum wood panels on the ceiling are mimicked in white terrazzo and grey-carpeted floors. White curved bars, made of a synthetic translucent resin that looks like stone, are backlit with coloured LEDS, which cycle through the visual spectrum as the day progresses to set the mood, and to reflect Virgin's new corporate livery.
"The brief was...to make air travel enjoyable, the way it used to be — fun and exciting," Mr Greer said. "Functionally, things slide from one place to another.
"We wanted to create a lounge with different spaces so that people could find the place they wanted within the bigger organisation. It's all tied together, aesthetically, with the ceiling, it's "net" effect (the linked leaf shapes) holds the whole thing together," Mr Greer said.
The curves of the glass walls and panelling highlighted sensuousness, he said, "to get back to the glamour of travel. Planes have the most beautiful form."
Art on the wall changes slowly through the day, as rather than canvasses, the wall pictures are digital images beamed to high-res plasma screens.
Business travellers have an airline service desk for ticket issues, wi-fi and ethernet access, PC workstations, quite areas, device recharging outlets and after a sweaty day, showers with supplied toiletries in a luxury-hotel style bathroom.
The lounge menus are created by chef Luke Mangan and differ between states on the same day for variety.
The airline expects 800 to 900 premium-class travellers to use the Melbourne lounge daily.
Concurrent with its opening, Virgin Blue has restructured its fares, simplifying five fare types into three from now on: Premium, Flexi and Saver.
Business class (where offered) and premium economy passengers will be entitled to use the lounge and all its amenities as part of the fare, as are silver and gold card Velocity frequent flyers, or those who paid for lounge memberships.
"Flexi" and "Saver" airfare travellers will still be able to use the lounge upon payment of a fee that will now be $50, up from the previous lounge pass fee of $30 to $35.
Virgin's domestic lounges at Brisbane, Sydney and Perth airports are next in line for the Melbourne treatment.
Also announced today, by year's end Virgin will offer business class to Mackay, with a new 70-seat lounge to also open at that terminal.
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