Power broker : Strengthened by its partnership with Singapore Airlines, Virgin Atlantic under Steve Ridgway, remains every bit the independent player, determined to innovate wherever it can.

Publication: Airline Business

Publication Date: 04-JUN-01

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COPYRIGHT 2001 Reed Business Information Ltd.

It was on the high seas, rather than in the air, that Steve Ridgway first got to know Sir Richard Branson. He did not know it then, but as co-pilots on two remarkable powerboat crossings of the Atlantic, Ridgway so impressed the Virgin boss that he soon had him on the team. This now marks Ridgway's third year at the helm of Virgin Atlantic Airways, and he appears as comfortable in control of an airline with annual revenues of $1.6 billion as he was with a powerboat.

Back in 1985, Ridgway was running the Toleman speedboat company. He reminisces: "We had a very unusual powerboat design and wanted to promote it to the military market. We thought what better way to achieve that than by breaking the famous old Blue Riband transatlantic crossing record which had lain dormant for 40 years?" Branson, never one to pass up a dangerous and exciting challenge, found the opportunity irresistible. Equally, it presented a fantastic publicity opportunity for Virgin, which was just launching its fledgling transatlantic services but had little money to advertise them.

"I did both trips with Richard," explains Ridgway. "We sank on the first one and made it on the second. We were horribly seasick all the way across the Atlantic, but we survived and I think that's where we bonded. Our efforts got huge publicity for Richard, particularly in the second year when we went back as this bunch of crazy Englishmen who'd sunk the previous year. It was manna from heaven really."

The Blue Riband attempts were splashed across newspapers on both sides of the Atlantic. "The net cost of those two projects was less than [pound]200,000, and we got around [pound]10 million worth of publicity, which was huge numbers in those days," says Ridgway.

The powerboat man kept in touch with Branson over the years, even doing a couple of projects with him. Then, in 1990, Ridgway came into the company as a consultant to set up the airline's...

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