BY JAMES WILKINSON
Virgin Australia has rebranded Polynesian Blue as Virgin Samoa as the company continues its ‘game changing’ plan.
The moves comes at the same time as the company re-brands Pacific Blue and V Australia under the Virgin Australia banner, finally unifying all of the airline’s entities.
The Prime Minister of Samoa, the Hon Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi, said the launch of Polynesian Blue had been a success for the South Pacific nation and he was looking forward to the ongoing success of Virgin Samoa, which now boasts a new livery and brand similar to Virgin Australia.
“Our vision when entering our Polynesian Blue joint venture in 2005 was to create a national airline that would be financially strong and that would provide growth opportunities and financial stability for our country,” he said. “We have achieved these goals.
“Today our vision is to bring a new level of service and style to our guests as we partner in the evolution of Virgin Australia. This name and branding provides a new level of professionalism for our national airline; a new style; of which the people of Samoa can be proud.”
Chief Executive Officer of Virgin Samoa, Mark Pitt, said the new livery featured a “uniquely Samoan flavor”, particularly the specially designed tatau pattern on the Boeing 737-800 engines.
“Samoan master tattooist, Tuifa’asisina Tulouena Sua, originally developed this unique design to represent the coming together of Polynesian Airlines and Virgin Australia to form Polynesian Blue,” he said. “As we now move into an even brighter future together as Virgin Samoa we felt it important to include a respectful reference to our culture and our past.
“I am confident our new brand, working with the strength of our airline partners, will significantly raise our profile with travellers all over the world; and that over time this will contribute to growth in passenger volume. The significance of this change cannot be understated in terms of the lift it will give to the airline’s future.”
“More importantly, the new Virgin Samoa name and aircraft livery will increase the airline’s visibility in the eyes of local Samoans and those living abroad, as Samoa’s national flag carrier.”
He said Virgin Samoa’s aircraft, named Tapu’itea, would carry the new exterior and an upgraded interior – that’s the same as Virgin Australia – in the first quarter of the 2012 calendar year.