Virgin Australia received mixed responses from social media users over the weekend after outlining the shape of the AFL Premiership Cup in Melbourne on AFL Grand Final day.
The stunt was part of the airline’s sponsorship of the annual sporting event and followed the release of football-related ads in the lead up to the big game.
Virgin took to Twitter on Sunday to share its feat:
“Yesterday, we created the largest AFL Premiership Cup in history by ‘drawing’ a 246km outline of the trophy over Melbourne in our A330 aircraft at 15,000 ft,” the airline posted to the social media platform.
Yesterday during our @AFL Grand Final flyover, we drew a 246km Premiership Cup over Melbourne in our A330 aircraft pic.twitter.com/z0DQo3g5S0
— Virgin Australia (@VirginAustralia) October 3, 2015
The carrier continued, thanking Air Services for help in planning the flight path to successfully outline the trophy.
A huge thanks to @AirservicesNews for their help with our @AFL Premiership Cup flight yesterday! pic.twitter.com/cHnWneHh6k — Virgin Australia (@VirginAustralia) October 4, 2015
Many users loved the stunt.
Among the fans was Mick Russell, who congratulated the airline on ‘great use of technology and skills’:
@VirginAustralia @AirservicesNews @AFL well done on this one! Great use of technology and skill!!!
— Mick Russell (@mickrussell_) October 4, 2015
There’s also Matt Solo and Igor Buvac who thought it was ‘very cool’. And there was Sir Ace McCool who was keen to know how to get onboard one of the aircraft next year.
@VirginAustralia @AirservicesNews @AFL how do I go about scoring a seat on this flight next year? — Sir Ace McCool (@Dusty_1) October 4, 2015
On the other hand, there were a few that weren’t equally as impressed and didn’t quite understand the appeal.
Teru Sensei saw it as ‘an awful waste of fuel’.
@VirginAustralia@AFL what an awful waste of fuel and pointless emissions. This sort of thing should be illegal.
— Teru sensei (@Mr2046) October 3, 2015
The same view was shared by Pierre La Pionk who saw it as a ‘waste of fuel and money’, while Lotus wondered who actually cared about the stunt.
.@VirginAustralia @AFL No one cares or notices. So bad for the environment too
— Lotus (@lotus2955) October 4, 2015
