Virgin America Inc. was a low-cost U.S. airline that operated from 2007 until 2018, when it was acquired by Alaska Airlines. The airline primarily focused on operating low-fare service between cities on the West Coast and other major metropolitan areas, with higher quality service. It was headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area city of Burlingame, and operated domestic flights to major U.S. cities, primarily from hubs at San Francisco and Los Angeles as well as a smaller focus city operation at Love Field in Dallas. The airline began operations in 2007 as an independent airline company using branding licensed from the United Kingdom–based Virgin Group, which also controls the brand of the Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Australia airlines. The Alaska Air Group acquired Virgin America in April 2016, at a cost of approximately $4 billion and continued to operate Virgin America under its own name and brand until the airline was fully merged into Alaska Airlines on April 24, 2018. History Founding (2004–2007) In early 2004, Virgin Group announced its intention to found a United States-based, low-fare airline called "Virgin USA". At the time, Virgin USA expected flights to begin by mid-2005. After considering several key areas, the San Francisco Bay Area was chosen as the location of its flight operations center and later as its corporate headquarters. The airline changed its name from "Virgin USA" to "Virgin America" and due to the difficulty in finding U.S. investors willing to gamble on a new airline in an already congested industry, the launch date was pushed back from mid-2005 to early 2006. Virgin America secured U.S. investors Black Canyon Capital and Cyrus Capital Partners in late 2005. Once the new owners were on board, Virgin's General Counsel submitted the required U.S. Department of Transportation certificate application on December 9, 2005. Unfortunately, despite significant public support for the new California-based airline, the approval process was mired in a debate between the supportive city and state representatives from California and New York and the opposing national aviation labor union, Air Line Pilots Association, as well as a potential competitor Continental Airlines. The review of Virgin America's application was prolonged due to this opposition, which claimed Virgin America, a subsidiary of the United Kingdom-based Virgin Group, would not be under U.S. ownership or control. The application was initially denied by the Department of Transportation on December 27, 2006. In order to achieve the