Virgin America has quietly named one of its newest planes in honor of the late Apple founder Steve Jobs.
"Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish" Virgin America Airbus A320. (Photo by Virgin America)
Dubbed Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish, the Airbus A320, registered N845VA, was delivered to the airline just two weeks after the Apple founder and personal computing pioneer died this past October.
The moniker references the famous Stanford University commencement address Jobs delivered in 2005:
Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.” It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.
Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.
Thank you all very much.
Virgin America, which prides itself on being Apple-esque in its “think different,” high-tech approach to in-flight service, selected the name from entries submitted by employees during an internal plane naming competition. Headquartered in Burlingame, Calif., Virgin is also the only airline based in Silicon Valley, about half-an-hour’s drive from the Apple campus in Cupertino.
It is especially fitting that Jobs be honored on an Airbus, a brand which is undoubtedly the “Mac” to Boeing’s “PC” in the endless debate over who makes the better airliner.
