Virgin Atlantic has taken a significant step in its digital transformation strategy with the full rollout of Virgin Atlantic Concierge, an AI-powered, always-on travel assistant now live across both the Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Atlantic Holidays websites.

Positioned as an intelligent companion that listens, understands and responds in natural language, the new service is designed to reshape how travelers research destinations, plan itineraries and book flights and holidays with the airline and its tour operator arm.

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A New Kind of Digital Travel Companion

Virgin Atlantic Concierge is built to feel less like a traditional chatbot and more like an intuitive digital host, available at any time to help prospective and existing customers navigate the entire travel planning process.

Rather than clicking through multiple pages and filters, guests can simply describe the type of trip they want, ask follow-up questions and receive tailored options for flights, packages and extras in real time.

According to the airline, the system reflects Virgin Atlantic’s long-standing focus on service and personality, bringing its recognisable brand tone into an online experience that is often impersonal for travelers.

The Concierge can handle a wide spectrum of requests, from helping a family compare Caribbean holiday packages to supporting a business traveler who needs to adjust flight times or explore premium cabin options on specific routes.

By deploying the Concierge simultaneously on both the airline and holidays websites, Virgin Atlantic is aiming to bridge a longstanding gap between flight-only booking journeys and more complex, multi-component vacations.

The unified assistant is designed to guide customers seamlessly between airline products and Virgin Atlantic Holidays offerings, so that users no longer have to start their planning process in separate digital environments.

Early positioning from the carrier underscores that this rollout is not presented as an experimental beta but as a core part of its mainstream digital experience.

The Concierge is visible within the online journey and is intended to be used by every type of customer, from first-time flyers to Flying Club regulars.

Powered by OpenAI and Built with Tomoro

Behind the scenes, Virgin Atlantic Concierge is powered by OpenAI technology and has been developed in partnership with customer experience and design specialist Tomoro.

The collaboration combines OpenAI’s multimodal AI capabilities with Tomoro’s focus on building branded, humanlike service interactions for large consumer-facing companies.

Virgin Atlantic describes the assistant as using advanced language models that can interpret complex queries, understand context across a conversation and refine recommendations as a traveler shares more details.

By engaging in back-and-forth dialogue, the Concierge can surface relevant flights, hotels and holiday packages, and clarify preferences such as budget, travel style, dates or cabin class, without the user needing to manually adjust multiple filters.

Tomoro’s role has centered on making the interaction feel distinctively “Virgin” rather than generic. The design brief was to avoid creating yet another scripted chatbot that offers limited, pre-set options.

Instead, the focus has been on conversational fluidity, natural responses and a visual presentation of travel plans that helps customers picture their journey as it evolves on screen.

The partnership with OpenAI and Tomoro also fits into Virgin Atlantic’s broader technology agenda, which includes alliances with major tech and consulting groups to modernize its digital infrastructure, streamline operations and introduce more intelligence into every stage of the customer journey.

Multimodal, Always-On and Deeply Personalized

One of the defining characteristics of Virgin Atlantic Concierge is its multimodal design, which allows guests to interact by typing, tapping or talking, depending on their device and preference.

The system is built to support queries via text and voice, and the airline has signaled an ambition to expand into richer modes of interaction over time, including image-based queries as its technology stack matures.

The Concierge continuously draws on the information a traveler provides during a conversation, such as favorite destinations, preferred travel dates, cabin choices or interest in specific types of hotels.

Over the course of a planning session, it can refine options in line with that emerging profile, making the booking experience more efficient for users who might otherwise repeat the same filters on each new search.

Beyond discovery and booking, the assistant is also configured to support Flying Club loyalty queries, provide answers about baggage rules, seat selection or special assistance, and handle general customer support questions.

This is part of a stated goal to create a more unified digital experience, where a customer can move from inspiration to purchase to post-booking management without switching tools or waiting in traditional support queues.

Virgin Atlantic emphasizes that the Concierge is designed to be “always on,” offering assistance around the clock to travelers across time zones.

For an airline with a large transatlantic footprint and a growing global holidays business, the ability to provide consistent digital support during off-peak contact center hours is expected to be a significant operational advantage.

Part of a Larger Premium and Personalization Push

The launch of Virgin Atlantic Concierge is one element in a broader program of investment in digital and in-flight experiences that the airline has announced over the past year.

Alongside cabin upgrades and fleet renewal, the carrier is positioning itself as a premium long-haul airline that pairs human service with intelligent technology, aiming to differentiate in a competitive transatlantic and long-haul leisure market.

In recent announcements, Virgin Atlantic has highlighted plans for free high-speed Wi-Fi across its widebody fleet, enabled by a new partnership with a satellite connectivity provider.

That rollout is scheduled to begin in the second half of 2026, with the airline targeting a home-like streaming experience at cruising altitude.

The promise of free, fast onboard connectivity dovetails with the development of more digital tools that can support customers before departure, at the airport and inflight.

On the ground and online, the Concierge rollout supports Virgin Atlantic’s stated ambition to create “brilliantly different, wonderfully personal” interactions at each step of the journey.

This includes bringing more real-time, AI-driven insight into the way it markets and sells travel, and using data platforms to better understand what drives customer satisfaction and loyalty across different products and routes.

The airline is also expanding its technology partnerships, including a multiyear agreement focused on modernizing core systems with AI-led solutions.

That program is intended to improve resilience, provide real-time operational visibility and help frontline teams access more timely, contextual information when serving customers in person or digitally.

Looking Ahead to the 2026 Mobile App Integration

Although Concierge is now fully live on the web, Virgin Atlantic is already publicly linking the service to its upcoming mobile app, which is scheduled to be introduced in stages from late 2025 and expanded through 2026.

The new app is being described as “the world of Virgin Atlantic in your pocket,” integrating both airline and Virgin Atlantic Holidays journeys into a single platform designed for Flying Club members and non-members alike.

Within that app environment, the Concierge is expected to evolve into an even more central travel companion, drawing on native smartphone capabilities such as notifications, location services and, eventually, richer voice interactions.

Travelers will be able to search and book flights and holidays, receive journey updates and potentially access personalized offers and loyalty information in a unified interface.

Industry analysts note that several airlines have experimented with conversational search and virtual agents, but Virgin Atlantic’s decision to position Concierge as the connective tissue between its websites and forthcoming app signals a more ambitious approach.

By building on OpenAI’s real-time capabilities, the airline is aiming to deliver an assistant that can handle not only scripted FAQs but also nuanced questions and evolving travel plans.

The carrier has indicated that enhancements to Concierge will continue beyond the initial rollout, with further capabilities and trade partner support tools expected to arrive in 2026.

This suggests that the current release is the foundation for a multiyear roadmap rather than a standalone feature.

Implications for Customers, Agents and the Wider Industry

For travelers, the most immediate impact of the rollout will be a different way of interacting with Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Atlantic Holidays online.

Customers who are accustomed to searching by origin, destination and date fields can still do so, but those who prefer to describe broader needs such as “a week in Florida in early spring with two kids and a focus on theme parks” can now rely on conversational search to narrow down options.

For travel agents and trade partners who book Virgin Atlantic products on behalf of clients, the airline is presenting Concierge as part of a toolkit that will continue to grow.

Future iterations are expected to offer more specific support for trade bookings and account queries, potentially simplifying complex itineraries and fare combinations.

The carrier has framed these developments as complementary to human travel professionals, designed to remove friction in research and administrative tasks rather than to replace advisory roles.

Across the aviation and tourism sectors, the move will be closely watched as an example of how a full-service airline can scale conversational AI into mainstream digital journeys.

While chatbots and FAQ assistants have been common for years, the use of large language models, multimodal inputs and a strong emphasis on brand personality represent a new phase of experimentation.

If successful, Virgin Atlantic’s Concierge could influence how other carriers and tour operators approach digital service, particularly as AI capabilities expand and customer expectations for personalized, instant support continue to rise.

It also raises competitive questions about how quickly airlines can integrate similar technology into their operations without compromising safety, reliability or regulatory compliance.

FAQ

Q1: What is Virgin Atlantic Concierge?
Virgin Atlantic Concierge is an AI-powered digital assistant that helps customers research, plan and book flights and holidays, as well as manage loyalty and support queries, through natural conversation on the Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Atlantic Holidays websites.

Q2: Where can I currently use the Concierge?
The Concierge is available across the main Virgin Atlantic website and the Virgin Atlantic Holidays website, appearing as an interactive assistant within the online booking and support journeys for both flight-only and package holiday customers.

Q3: Who developed the technology behind Concierge?
The service is powered by OpenAI technology and was designed and built in partnership with digital experience specialist Tomoro, which worked with Virgin Atlantic to embed the airline’s distinctive service tone into the interaction.

Q4: What can the Concierge help me with?
The Concierge can assist with destination ideas, flight searches, holiday package recommendations, Flying Club loyalty questions, and general customer support topics such as baggage rules, seating options and booking changes, all within the same conversational interface.

Q5: Is this just a simple chatbot?
Virgin Atlantic stresses that Concierge is designed to go beyond scripted chatbots, using advanced language models to understand context, respond naturally, and curate or visualize travel plans in a way that adapts to each guest’s preferences over the course of a conversation.

Q6: Does the Concierge work with voice as well as text?
The system supports multiple modes of interaction and is built to allow guests to tap, type or talk, with the airline planning to expand voice and other multimodal capabilities further as it integrates Concierge into its new mobile app.

Q7: How does this relate to Virgin Atlantic’s upcoming mobile app?
The Concierge is intended to become a core feature of Virgin Atlantic’s new mobile app, launching from late 2025 and expanding in 2026, where it will act as a personal travel companion integrated with real-time notifications and journey management tools.

Q8: Is my personal data used to personalize recommendations?
During a conversation, the Concierge uses information that you choose to share, such as dates, destinations or preferences, to refine recommendations, and Virgin Atlantic has indicated that these interactions are handled within its broader data and privacy frameworks for digital services.

Q9: Will travel agents still be able to book Virgin Atlantic products in the usual way?
Yes. Traditional booking channels for trade partners remain in place, and Virgin Atlantic has stated that future enhancements to Concierge will be designed to support, not replace, agents by reducing friction in research and routine queries.

Q10: What does this launch mean for the wider airline industry?
The full rollout of Virgin Atlantic Concierge positions the airline among the early adopters of large-scale conversational AI in aviation, and is likely to influence how other carriers approach digital service and personalization as customer expectations for intelligent, instant support continue to grow.