AIRLINE’S PAYMENTS OPTIONS TAKE FLIGHT

Virgin Atlantic Takes Advantage of Worldpay’s Global Footprint and Airline Industry Expertise

Virgin Atlantic was founded by entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson in 1984, with innovation and amazing customer service at its core. In 2022, Virgin Atlantic was voted Britain’s only Global Five Star Airline by APEX in the Official Airline Ratings for the sixth year running.

Headquartered in London, Virgin Atlantic employs more than 7,500 people worldwide, flying customers to 28 destinations across four continents. The company recently continued its expansion in the U.S., announcing a new route to Tampa in late 2022, following the launch of flights to Austin in the spring of 2022.

Alongside shareholder and joint venture partner Delta Air Lines, Virgin Atlantic operates a leading transatlantic network with onward connections to more than 200 cities around the world. The airline serves domestic and international passengers in both the leisure and business market segments.

Worldpay’s airline expertise is key

“What attracted us to Worldpay was not only their universal footprint with many enterprise clients in diverse verticals, but their real domain knowledge of airlines and the challenges we face,” says Keli Sandeman, manager of payment strategy at Virgin Atlantic. “Additionally, Worldpay provides us with global coverage, they have a true partnership mentality that we greatly appreciate and they are a respected payments brand we are proud to be associated with.

“The knowledge of the wider Worldpay team has made every aspect of our journey together a real pleasure,” she continues. “They are proactive in support and don’t hide behind emails. Even though we are in different countries and time zones, every response is timely. With Worldpay, we work seamlessly together for mutual success.”

Offering customers payments options

Yasin Demir, head of distribution and payments at Virgin Atlantic, notes the freedom to grow with Worldpay as a major advantage.

“By partnering with Worldpay, we are afforded the flexibility to innovate towards our payments ambition. Virgin’s aim is to offer global payments choices in all the countries that we operate, which ensures that our customers get many options.”

Virgin Atlantic is using Worldpay’s e-commerce acquiring services along with point-of-sale hardware and software solutions for airport payments and to support its payments orchestration platform. They are also leveraging Worldpay’s existing integrations with their U.S.-based Airlines Reporting Corporation (ARC) travel agent community.

Smooth implementation process

On a final note regarding implementation, Keli remarks that it was an effortless process.

“Working with Worldpay is super smooth! We went live in less than one month, which spanned the Christmas and New Year’s holidays. All the Virgin Atlantic teams commented how efficiently things went," she says.

Impact

Virgin Atlantic benefits from Worldpay’s extensive global scope and years of in-depth airline experience to provide leisure and business travelers with multiple payment options and a positive experience.