Virgin Atlantic has made this announcement on their blog:
By Dave Gunner
We’re saying farewell to our Flying Lady and welcoming five new “Flying Icons” to adorn our brand new Airbus A350-1000 fleet. The high flyers are a diverse range of men and women representing modern Britain, rolled out on four brand new aircraft this year, followed by a further eight by 2021.
Our use of the Flying Lady was inspired by figureheads that have decorated ships since the 16th century. The artwork was based on the pin up girls made famous by Alberto Vargas in the 1930s and 1940s.
This move represents a big change for us following our pledge to tackle our gender pay gap and increase diversity and inclusion across the business, and this is mirrored in the look and feel of the brand. We’re aiming to have a 50:50 gender balance in leadership roles, as well as at least 12% black, Asian and minority ethnic group (BAME) representation across the company, by 2022.
We were a founding member of Women in Aviation and Aerospace in 2018 as well as a signatory of the Women in Hospitality, Travel and Leisure charter (of which Nikki Humphrey, our SVP of People sits on the board). We’ve also ensured greater diversity with our engineering apprenticeship and pilot cadet schemes and have developed a Springboard Network which aims to help women in junior roles develop clear career pathways to become senior leaders.
One of the decals being cut at CGI Creative Graphics International Limited ahead of application onto the aircraft.
With our latest brand campaign, we’ve become the first company to show a same sex couple in our ad imagery in India, and will be the first airline to have male figureheads on our aircraft. In a further move to increase equality, we’ve recently announced a change to our uniform and styling policy so that women can choose whether they would like trousers or a skirt, and removed requirements to wear makeup.
Nikki Humphrey, our Senior Vice President – People
“The saying goes ‘You can’t be what you can’t see’ and that has never been truer than the aviation industry’s glamourous image in the past,” Nikki Humphrey said. “We’ve been working for a number of years to tackle our gender pay gap, create an inclusive workplace and increase the diversity of our workforce, through the development of our Springboard scheme for women, as well as the launch of engineering apprenticeships. By introducing our new Flying Icons I hope it encourages people from all backgrounds to feel at home flying with us, but also working with us.”
Flying high for 34 years – 10 facts about our flying lady nose art
We’re celebrating 34 years of flying today, and to mark the occasion we’re looking back at the history of our ‘Flying Ladies’. Here’s a rundown of ten little-known facts about our unique Varga Girl artwork – one of the most distinctive and talked about parts of our livery.
A very early example of our Varga Girl
It’s thought the first nose art on an aircraft was a dragon painted on a flying boat in 1913. The practice was adopted by German and Italian pilots in World War I, though it’s mostly associated with American World War II planes. Nose paintings were an expression of individuality and rebellion during times when strict military protocols ruled. As well as being a good luck symbol, the art helped to ward off homesickness and brought familiarity to an unfamiliar world.
The Flying Lady didn’t appear on our earliest aircraft. Our livery was mostly white back then, and at that point, we didn’t even have our famous red engines. On the nose of our planes, the Virgin logo was the only adornment to be seen. Nobody knows exactly when the first Varga Girl flew, or where she flew to – if you know the answer, get in touch.
What? No Flying Lady? Richard (and Holly) on 22 June 1984 ahead of our first ever flight
When Richard came up with the idea of painting our aircraft noses, a search was launched to find a suitable piece of art. Many American World War II planes drew inspiration from illustrations by Peruvian artist Alberto Vargas (hence the name Varga Girl) who painted pin-up images for Esquire Magazine during the 1940s. We discovered the original artwork for our planes in the December 1943 edition, and after permission was granted by the Vargas estate, it started to appear on our aircraft.
Made of vinyl, the decals come in three pieces and are incredibly difficult to apply – it is not unheard of for the poor Flying Lady to end up with an extra crease in her knees when the flag is lined up correctly.
The smallest version of the flying lady on our Airbus fleet
Once the decal is fixed in place, a sealing lacquer is applied on top of the Varga Girl as protection from the 500mph winds that will blast her. Even with this, we still need to replace her every 14 months to a year, a job that takes a specialist team in our hangar half a day to complete. This is why very few airlines have decals applied in front of the first set of doors as this is a ‘high friction’ area of the aircraft.
Over the years, there have been a number of variations to the artwork. The original had Virgin written on the flag and our lady was wearing a neckerchief (is that even a word?). The next iteration displayed the Union flag and still had the neckerchief, though after someone compared it to a British Airways logo, it was promptly dropped. The latest, neckerchief-free design has a much bigger Union flag, and there have also been a number of ‘one-off’ designs including Austin Powers, Dita Von Teese, and Golden Girl (for the Tokyo Olympics). When we operated a relief flight to Basra after the first Gulf War the Flying Lady was also painted over with a Union flag.
Getting the flying ladies onto our Boeing 787s was a particular challenge. There is a strict maximum limit of what can be applied on top of the composite fuselage. To meet that criteria we had to embed the vinyl into the paintwork. This involves having an indentation to match the decal.
Archer photos courtesy of Jeremy Berridge , one of our Boeing 787 pilots.
One Varga Girl – the archer – on G-TKYO, was extra special. Featuring a bow and arrow this was not a decal but hand painted. Terry Flynn, Manager, Aircraft Assets, take up the story:
“I was detailed to meet the guy who hand-painted The Archer Vargas model on G-TKYO in 1989 during its entry into service check in Paris. I was told I would recognise him as he looked like Richard and would be wearing a sweater like Richard, which he did. I escort him to the aircraft and got his scaffold tower in place then sat back to watch the skills of a signwriter / mural artist at work.
Later that day we noticed that there were silhouette outlines of what looked like pirate hats along the solid red line we had over the windows in those days. So we questioned this as it wasn’t anything we had seen or been told about. His response was – “It’s what Richard wants”. When pushed it turned out that these were going to be Pirate hats with the 3 main competitors on our new London – Tokyo route. Namely JAL, BA and ANA names on them and the Archer was taking aim at them. This was linked to the infamous description Lord King then Chief Exec of BA who described Richard as a Pirate.
We had to fight to get these hats removed as it was not going to help our case if we were to go technical in Narita. We’d have had to ask JAL, BA and ANA for help and it’s unlikely they’d be very supportive!
The original decal on the early Boeing 747-200s was the largest but was incredibly expensive to apply and maintain so it was shrunk in later designs. The first was printed in 72 dpi resolution which made it look very blocky when viewed up close. They’re now made at 300 dpi and look far superior to previous versions.
A close up of the original 747-200 decal showing low resolution and pinholes
Many thanks to Dave Napper, Senior Engineer – Design and Development, our livery guru and Varga Girl expert, who helped with a lot of the information in this post.