Virgin Blue's Epic Marketing Mistake

I travel Syd-Melb and back at least once a month, and have done for at least ten years for work. I am a Virgin Blue regular, and have been ever since they launched in 2000. Why? They are overall cheaper, they are more often than not on time, their crew are smiley and nice, if occasionally a little officious, but they do 'live the brand'. The other thing about Virgin Blue is that, when they started out, they were determinedly egalitarian. The prices were relatively easy to predict, and I would regularly get Seat 1a, right next to the door.

But all this has changed in the last year, ever since Virgin brought in the empty red chairs up the front - I have been on flights where from row 7 back it was completely chockers, and there was one wanker in a suit sitting up the front (and no, it wasn't me, I average $200 return on Virgin).

I can't comment on the business model - maybe selling 50% of those seats on the busy 6/6:45/7am flights @$500 each makes sense, but from a marketing poiint of view it's a complete catastrophe -it takes Virgin's egalitarian, happy smiley brand ethos and craps all over it. I was on a 60% full 8:15 pm flight last night (had an 8am conference date - www.marketingnow.biz, so wanted to get there the night before), and there were ZERO peeps in the red seats.

Wake up Virgin Blue and smell the coffee - democratise the Red seats, or (GASP) reward your frequent flyers by letting them use them if they're not full.

cheers
m