The Secret Life of Virgins: The Video

Today is the last day Virgin America will be operated as an independent airline. This week was unexpectedly harder than most, but I’m not upset. There was nothing I could have done to stop it. Though I am optimistic of the future, the weight of all of the “good times” sits heavy on my heart. Virgin America, the brand, was internationally recognized but underneath the brand was an atypical congregation of personalities and life experiences. ¬ Most importantly, we were encouraged to be the best version of ourselves, nothing less. Unbeknownst to guests, the galleys were a place of refuge and vulnerability where we shared our successes and fears with teammates we’d only known for hours. We didn’t just tolerate each other, we embraced each other’s uniqueness and built a family during the good times (events, layovers, empty flights) and the bad times (delays, cancellations, summer flying). We were NOWHERE CLOSE to perfect yet somehow our guests kept coming back, we kept winning awards and we changed the aviation industry for good. This month marks my 9th year at Virgin America. In that time, I collected thousands of memories, footage, and photographs. I’ve spent the last two weeks going through all of it. ALL. OF. IT. To think it was remotely possible to sum up my experience in a single post is incredulous at best, so I hope that this personal retrospective generates a warmth of life in you that I experienced in my time at Virgin America.