It's no secret that Google has been moving to profit more from travelers researching and booking flights. But it is rare to hear a top airline executive speak openly about the airline industry's fraught relationship with the search giant.
So ears perked up late last week when David Cush, former chief executive of Virgin America, talked candidly about this issue.
Cush was speaking at a conference in San Francisco run by venture capital firm Thayer Ventures. Given his decade-long track record as chief of the U.S. carrier, he had been invited to share his thoughts with a few dozen limited partners in Thayer's investment funds about what he saw during his time at Virgin America. (He left the company late last year after its sale to Alaska Airlines was closed.)
Google was not the main focus of his talk, but it was one topic he touched on as he discussed the trends that he says many U.S. airlines face today.
[caption id="attachment_226745" align="alignright" width="400"] David Cush speaks at the Thayer Ventures annual event in San Francisco on April 6.[/caption]
Searching for an answer to Google
Cush said one of his frustrations at Virgin America was the issue of direct marketing on a tight budget:
"A couple of years ago, one of our sources of frustration was right around when the higher number of visits to our branded website went down. So basically what we're looking at primarily is the natural search business. Organic searches were declining.
