This spring, the first virgin atlantic airways A330 flight took off from london to new york, featuring a brand new bar and cabin, offering passengers a new experience when up 30 000 feet in the air. The design has been developed by the international VW + BS studio in partnership with the virgin atlantic team.
Four years ago, VW + BS were approached by virgin with a test brief to see what they could do if they had a free hand to redesign one of their planes. They researched the changing trends in travel and hospitality to produce an intelligence report that could form a reference for the client, and determine how these new ideas could be incorporated on board an aircraft. the existing product that was introduced in 2003 remained a market leader, but trends in travel were changing and virgin was determined to be the industry innovator. from the test project VW + BS went on to develop the real thing. the brief was very ambitious: to create an exciting and engaging social space for passengers, while meeting an immense technical requirement of a wide bodied plane with the strictest safety regulations.
