V-Flyer had humble beginnings. In fact, for nearly six months after its initial creation in March 2003, it didn't even have a name - it was just an IP address. Originally publisher Pete Shaw created the site to support the most common questions about Virgin Atlantic on the FlyerTalk discussion boards. The most common request (and still one of the most popular), was 'What aircraft will I be on?'.

Starting with a pile of ACARS data of Virgin Atlantic aircraft movements, Pete built a query tool to address the problem. Whilst it couldn't magically come up with the aircraft schedule, it could at least give a percentage prediction of what type of aircraft or entertainment system would be used - and this proved very popular with visitors. Soon after, many more custom tools were written for the site and even a fledgling discussion forum appeared.

By November 2003, the site had flourished. It had also found a name - VirginFlyer. The implementation of a complete site re-design brought organisation to the rag-tag bunch of tools, and the Forum was replaced with a Snitz-based code to allow for the increasing demand from users.

Virgin Atlantic themselves had by this point started to take notice of our little site, and supported VirginFlyer with a feature in their own customer newsletter, iFly. The attention of Virgin Atlantic also brought the attention of Virgin Group, and to stay on their friendly side it was agreed that the site would change its name to V-Flyer to avoid any confusion with Virgin Group companies.

The site has grown, or to be more precise - "outgrown", having been through two different platforms, three different web hosts and four different locations; but now settled on its own dedicated Unix server in London.

The founder and publisher of the site is Pete, a Virgin Atlantic passenger for over 20 years, and 14 years in the Flying Club. In addition, the forum is moderated by a team of volunteers - chosen from active members of our community, deliberately from diverse backgrounds in order to best represent the needs of the users of the site. The moderating team currently consists of the following V-Flyer members:

• Bazz (Berkshire, UK)
• Buns (Surrey, UK)
• ChuckC (California, USA)
• Darren Wheeler (Berkshire, UK)
• Decker (London, UK)
• fozzyo (West Midlands, UK)
• HighFlyer (Oxfordshire, UK)
• honey lamb (Cork, Ireland)
• mcmbenjamin (Washington D.C., USA)
• mitchja (Manchester, UK)
• Neil (Humberside, UK)
• Nottingham Nick (Nottinghamshire, UK)
• preiffer (Hampshire, UK)
• RichardMannion (Oxfordshire, UK)
• Scrooge (Nevada, USA)

Feel free to contact any of the moderators should you have any questions or concerns about the site. As a volunteer team, please note, however, that they may not be able to answer your question immediately.

V-Flyer is owned by Web Editors Ltd, Registered in England & Wales No. 6297678.

Contact address: V-Flyer, 239 Lewisham Way, London SE4 1XF