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

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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.”

Virgin Atlantic 787 Upper Class bar

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 will bid farewell to its iconic onboard bar in 2030

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 will bid farewell to its iconic onboard bar in 2030

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.

Virgin Atlantic A330neo Loft

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).

Comments (59)

  • Fraser says:

    Another nail in the coffin (pardon the pun). The bar space has progressively declined, lack of staff and then the loft, but even the latter was great for socialising with other passengers, avoiding spending the entire flight in your seat, etc. With this lack of differentiation and devaluation of the loyalty programme, it’s hard to retain any sense of loyalty and certainly not worth going out of my way to fly Virgin.

    I do wonder what the Clubhouse changes will be, as this has also become progressively less differentiated with differentiated leisure spaces being given over to increasingly crowded seating areas.

  • HH says:

    I was really surprised how unused the bar space was on a recent daytime A380 QR flight. I spent a few hours there and the only other passenger was using it more as an office to type angrily on his laptop. At one point, a lady came in to ask how to connect to the WiFi then disappeared. Oh well, at least being so empty meant they were happy for me to drink from the F bottle selection.

    • The real Swiss Tony says:

      Likewise I was underwhelmed by my visit to the QR A380 bar last year, which was a marked contrast to Emirates who appeared to go to great lengths to staff it with the most convivial crew member(s) which in turn made it a place you wanted to spend time in – encourages more passenger interaction, too.

      • Rhys says:

        Emirates is really interesting. They have the onboard polaroid and the bartender will practically beg you to jump in and take a photo in the bar. They know it is great marketing.

  • Michael says:

    Is this also a case that people have become more anti-social, preferring to spend time on their phones, tablets or IFE, rather than chatting with fellow travellers?
    Airlines need a true point of differentiation, particularly in business. I loved the bar as a place to escape from your seat and have an experience other airlines (e.g. BA) didn’t offer.

  • Dragonlady says:

    I won’t really miss the bar despite meeting some interesting ( and occasionally famous ) people there . Over the years it’s increasingly become a work area for crew for a lot of the time where passengers are seen as a bit of an inconvenience. Nowadays the EK and QR bars are much more enjoyable for me.I used to love the beauty therapists even if they were gimmicky and with very limited offerings – they were only allowed to ‘ treat ‘ a small number of passengers per flight compared to number of UC passengers which ( one of them told me ) caused issues if someone who wanted a treatment wasn’t selected. Loved the white uniforms and was sad to see them go ( some converted to cabin crew or moved to the CH spas ).I think the last time I saw one was on a flight to SYD back in 2007/2008 same IFBT on both legs as they used to have a one night layover in HKG ( and I had a treatment on each leg ).

    • Tom says:

      Dragon lady, correct, except the layover in Hong Kong was 2 nights on the HKG/SYD trip in 07/08. Spoken as a VS crew member during that era 🙂

      • Dragonlady says:

        Ah I must have had a 2 night stay then too that trip outbound .Did you do the exchange programme with DJ in the same era too ?

  • John London says:

    Boeing 787s (being refurbished from 2028-2030) – I think it needs to be done ASAP and in 3 years time

  • Fu Yung says:

    With loss of the bar, there’s no USP to any other transatlantic carrier. A shame but my loyalty will now be spread across multiple airlines. Thought they had learnt their lesson with the Loft, but seems it’s another marketing fupar like JLR

  • HampshireHog says:

    I’m shaken but not stirred by the news.

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