Virgin Atlantic will bid farewell to its iconic onboard bar in 2030

All good things must come to an end and after 41 years Virgin Atlantic has decided to call time on its onboard bars. The move was announced on Tuesday as part of a suite of updates by CEO Shai Weiss at its Customer Experience Showcase in London.

Between 2028 and 2030, the airline’s Boeing 787 fleet will be refurbished, finally bringing its latest Upper Class Suites (currently found on the A330neo) to this aircraft. There will be one casualty: the onboard bar.

“At Virgin Atlantic people love a bar. It’s a very emotional word here ….

“But we can’t stand still and we have a new vision for social space. We always believe that a plane should come with the social space.”

Replacing this social space will be Virgin’s new super-business class (image below), says Shai:

“I love the bar, and we do love a social space, but the extension of the social space on the 787 will be the Retreat Suites.”

Currently Virgin Atlantic has just two Retreat Suites on board its A330-900neos. This will quadruple as part of the Boeing 787 refurbishment program, with a total of eight suites available per flight.

Although unconfirmed, I would expect this to include the first row of two Upper Class cabins – a large forward cabin and a smaller rear. For the first time, it appears that Virgin Atlantic will unveil solo Retreat Suites in the window seats.

Virgin Atlantic is one of the first airlines to introduce ‘super business’ or ‘business plus’ seats. These are larger, more spacious seats in bulkhead (front) rows.

By virtue of being in the first row, these seats have far more space to play with. Seat designers have been optimising their layout to create full-width business class seats which can be sold as upgrades to passengers. Virgin Atlantic currently charges a supplement of around £300 for a one-way upgrade to its Retreat Suites.

For now, upgrading to a Retreat Suite only gets you a bigger seat. Shai teased that Virgin Atlantic will “develop that further right now.”

“Of course, it’s an unbelievable bed, and you can host a dinner party, but when we have more of these in the fleet, eight suites on the 787, six on the new A330neos, we can differentiate further. You know, different food, different champagne. You can do different things.”

Virgin Atlantic’s onboard bar put it in an exclusive club

Over the years, the onboard bar has become something of a signature. Virgin Atlantic was the first airline to introduce a bar in the sky when it launched in 1984 with a single Boeing 747-200.

Yet in a sign that its days were numbered, the airline decided to replace the bar with something it called ‘The Loft’ when it launched its fleet of A350s in 2019. It continued this trend in 2023 when its first A330neo arrived. Today, only 17 Boeing 787s and a handful of older A330s feature its classic bar concept.

Virgin Atlantic was part of an exclusive club thanks to the bar and The Loft. Whilst onboard lounges were once commonplace on aircraft, particularly the Boeing 747, the number of airlines offering spaces to mix and mingle outside of your immediate seat have dwindled. These days, it is largely the preserve of the Gulf carriers, with Emirates, Qatar Airways and Etihad all offering bars and lounges. Korean Air and Qantas are the other notable exceptions.

What set Virgin Atlantic apart was that it installed these social spaces on single-decker aircraft. Emirates Etihad, Korean, Qantas and Qatar Airways all feature them exclusively on their double-decker A380s. Virgin put them on all its aircraft, from the A330 and A350 to the 787.

It was a unique decision that genuinely cost the airline money. Every square foot of space on these smaller widebodies is hard-won. Turning a not-insignificant chunk over to a social space meant reducing the overall seat count and therefore reducing revenue.

At the time, the trade-offs must have made sense to management. It was good marketing and created a ‘halo’ effect for customers of Virgin Atlantic, regardless of what cabin they were travelling in.

The last few years have been cut-throat in the airline industry. Virgin Atlantic had it particularly tough during the pandemic and the airline’s financial viability was thrust into the spotlight. As a result, Shai Weiss has spent the last five years fighting to stabilise finances and even chart a course to profitability.

In some ways, the retirement of the onboard bar comes as no surprise. Back in the day – before my time! – Virgin Atlantic had a member of cabin crew dedicated to staffing the bar, chatting to passengers and making drinks. (In the 90s, Virgin Atlantic also offered complimentary massages with onboard beauty therapists.) This ended long ago, with the bar unstaffed but for passing crew members who offer top-ups.

The bar wasn’t without its detractors. Being located directly behind the Upper Class cabin, it could cause cabin noise issues for passengers sat in the last rows of Upper or the front of Premium, particularly on night flights.

Demographic and cultural shifts over the past 40 years have also played a part. Solo female business travellers are now far more common than they were in 1984, for whom the bar might be less attractive. More recently, the Gen Z shift away from drinking culture has been widely documented.

In 2019, Virgin Atlantic replaced the bars with its new Loft concept on its latest aircraft, the A350. This was touted as a ‘social space’ for Upper Class passengers to gather, chat and relax in a lounge rather than bar setting

Hopefully someone has told Sir Richard Branson. Just last year he told The Times that replacing the bar with The Loft “was a dreadful mistake. We’ll be bringing back the bar as soon as we possibly can.” Although still the airline’s largest shareholder, Branson is no longer directly involved in running it, having stepped down as President in 2013.

Virgin Atlantic’s last onboard bar will be ripped out in 2030

Whilst it will be sad to see the onboard bars go, I’m also excited to see how Virgin Atlantic develops its Retreat Suites.

Since 2023, this sub-cabin has felt a bit orphaned with too few seats on too few aircraft. At the moment, Virgin Atlantic has just eight A330neos in its fleet which means there are just 16 Retreat Suites available across its entire network.

This is far too few to roll out dedicated food, soft product or amenity kits for those passengers – the numbers simply don’t make sense. Refurbishment of the Boeing 787 fleet and the densification of the last ten A330neos to arrive will make further differentiation from ‘standard’ Upper Class possible. There will be a total of 190 Retreat Suites available when the fleet expansion and refurbishment is completed in 2030.

Until then, you have five years to enjoy the onboard bars which you can still find on the older A330s (being phased out by 2028) and the Boeing 787s (being refurbished from 2028-2030).