Virgin America's top 10 requested cities

photo by Johnny Vulkan

Virgin America recently released a list of the ten cities that are most requested for new VA service. The survey is still up, so if you don't see your preferred route listed below, you can still vote.

1. SFO- Chicago
2. SFO- Honolulu
3. SFO- Miami
4. LAX- Miami
5. SFO- Portland
6. LAX- Chicago
7. SFO- Phoenix
8. JFK- Miami
9. SFO- Denver
10. LAX- Portland

Many of these routes are currently flown only by a few legacy carriers. The San Francisco - Chicago and Los Angeles - Chicago routes, for example, are currently flown only by United and American. JFK - Miami is flown only by American and Delta, and American has a monopoly on the San Francisco - Miami and Los Angeles - Miami routes. Even though Virgin America would certainly be taking a risk by flying into the fortress hubs of legacy carriers (United in Chicago, American in Miami, etc.), their relatively premium product would probably attract quite a few unsatisfied AA and UA customers. Those are the routes (LAX-MIA, SFO-ORD) that would be best for Virgin America to fly, especially as they would avoid head-to-head competition with other low cost carriers (i.e. Frontier on SFO-DEN).