Virgin Galactic [...] Local authorities have confirmed that one of the two Scaled Composites pilots died during the accident”. This was in strong contrast to public communications previously released concerning the group's successful flights, which had routinely presented pilots, craft, and projects within the same organizational structures, as being "Virgin Galactic" flights or activities of "the Galactic team". The BBC's David Shukman commented that: “Even as details emerge of what went wrong, this is clearly a massive setback to a company hoping to pioneer a new industry of space tourism. Confidence is everything and this will not encourage the long list of
Virgin Australia unchanged after the rollout of premium economy. Virgin Australia began long haul international operations as V Australia, commencing its first passenger flight operations on 27 February 2009. V Australia was re-branded as Virgin Australia's Long Haul International Operations on 7 December 2011. On 10 January 2011, Virgin Blue entered a 10-year strategic alliance with Perth-based Skywest Airlines (now Virgin Australia Regional Airlines), to operate up to 18 new Virgin-branded turboprop aircraft from mid-2011. On 23 February, it was announced that the aircraft would be ATR-72s, to enter service beginning in May 2011; they would allow Virgin Australia to both replace