New Virgin brand

As previously mentioned in the "game changing" plan introduced by Virgin group CEO John Borghetti, he had hoped to rebrand the Virgin group of airlines - Virgin Blue, Pacific Blue, Polynesian Blue & V Australia under 1 brand.

Sadly for Mr Borghetti this doesn't look to be the case with the airline set to rebrand Virgin Blue as Virgin Australia while the Pacific & Polynesian Blue brands look likely to be folded into the V Australia brand.

Virgin have submitted their new name/logo to be trademarked in Australia and a black and white copy as seen here is available through IP Australia the government body responsible.

Further to this the first aircraft likely to be painted in the scheme Boeing 737-81D VH-YFC flew MEL-CHC on Friday 22-April-2011 and was towed into the paint shop on Monday 25-April-2011.  This ties in with an expected brand launch in the first week of May.

Virgin are also understood to have taken their first Airbus A330-200 VH-XFA to China recently where it had the new livery applied, and undertook filming work for the brand launch, before being removed from the livery before returning to Australia for further proving/training flights.

For more on the upcoming brand changes check out Will Horton's article on his Wings Down Under blog at flightglobal.com HERE