Why Virgin Atlantic Chose OpenAI for its Travel Chatbot

Virgin Atlantic has rolled out its AI-powered Concierge service across the Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Atlantic Holidays websites. Built with OpenAI and digital design firm Tomoro, the system lets customers plan and book travel through text, voice or image inputs.

The Concierge handles flight searches, holiday bookings, Flying Club loyalty queries and general support questions. It learns preferences from conversations and suggests relevant options. A mobile app launching in 2026 will bring the same functionality to smartphones.

“Our new Concierge reimagines how we connect with our guests. It listens, understands, and responds helping to plan holidays and flights with the same intuitive care you’d expect from our teams,” says Siobhan Fitzpatrick, Chief Experience Officer at Virgin Atlantic.

The airline had been testing enterprise AI for several years before committing to OpenAI as a primary partner. That decision came after running pilots with ChatGPT Enterprise across internal teams, according to Oliver Byers, Chief Financial Officer at Virgin Atlantic.

Why Virgin Atlantic's CFO backed enterprise AI spending

For Oliver, the investment case was straightforward. Virgin Atlantic competes against larger carriers with deeper resources, so technology offers a way to close the gap.

“Being a smaller airline compared to our global competitors means we need to find smart ways to offset scale disadvantages. Leading-edge technology gives us that edge,” he says.

The airline now runs hundreds of custom GPTs across departments. Development teams use AI coding tools including Codex to ship features faster. HR built GPTs that answer policy questions. Finance teams use AI to analyse performance data and draft reports.

“We can see the benefit that it brings day to day…from small-scale trials that we ran all the way through to larger-scale programs that we’re now running – it’s delivering tangible benefit. From any CFO’s perspective you can’t ignore it – you’ve got to embrace it,” Oliver says.

The engineering results have been particularly visible. Code gets written and tested faster, which means new features reach customers sooner. In an industry where digital experience drives bookings, that speed matters.

“We’ve seen massive adoption of the technology...ultimately what that results in is us getting more code written at a faster pace in front of our customers to give a better experience,” he says.

How OpenAI and Tomoro built Virgin Atlantic Concierge

The Concierge project required more than just plugging in OpenAI’s APIs. Tomoro spent time working with Virgin Atlantic to translate the airline’s service style into something that worked in a chatbot interface.

“We’ve worked closely with Virgin Atlantic to capture what makes their service special: the warmth, the expertise, the personal touch their team brings to every interaction. Using OpenAI’s technology and our expertise building intelligent customer service experiences, we’ve helped bring Virgin Atlantic’s exceptional hospitality to digital channels,” says Sam Netherwood, Co-founder and Head of Design at Tomoro.

The system routes straightforward queries to the AI but hands off complex or sensitive issues to human agents. Virgin Atlantic tracks engagement rates, satisfaction scores and revenue to measure whether the Concierge is working.

Nicolai Skabo, EMEA Enterprise Leader at OpenAI, points to Virgin Atlantic as an example of how airlines can use AI across both employee tools and customer-facing products.

“We’re proud to help Virgin Atlantic bring the benefits of AI to every part of its business – from giving employees smarter tools to powering new customer experiences. With its new digital Concierge, Virgin Atlantic is integrating advanced intelligence into each stage of travel. Travellers get personalised support by voice, image or text showing how leading brands like Virgin Atlantic can deliver intuitive, on-brand service at scale to elevate service and streamline operations,” says Nicolai.