The first flight arrives at McCarran's D gates on Oct. 10 and Virgin officials are promising big things for the airline that has the same roots as London-based Virgin Atlantic and its flamboyant top executive, Sir Richard Branson.

There was a period of time during which it seemed Virgin would never get off the ground.

Federal law prohibits an airline with more than 25 percent foreign ownership from flying domestic routes in the United States. A lot of people made the assumption that because it carried the Virgin name and Branson had his fingerprints all over it that it was, in fact, a foreign carrier and wouldn't get certificated.

Several airlines filed petitions with the U.S. Department of Transportation attempting to block Virgin's entry. Because the company had to spend time countering the challenges, the start-up date for Virgin, which incorporated in November 2005, went from late last year to the middle of 2007.

The company hired Fred Reid, a former executive with Delta Air Lines, Pan American World Airways and Lufthansa, to be its chief executive. Having a San Francisco native and Cal graduate aboard as the top executive deflected attention from Branson and his 25 percent ownership role in the airline, which is 75 percent owned by VAI Partners LLC.

VAI Partners in an investor group comprised of Black Canyon Capital and Cyrus Capital Partners, both U.S. investment firms. VAI put together $177.3 million in start-up cash, making Virgin one of the best-capitalized start-up airlines in U.S. history.

The Virgin brand was licensed by the Virgin Group, which operates Virgin Atlantic, an airline that offers daily non-stop flights between London's Gatwick International Airport and Las Vegas. The group also oversees a chain of music and video stores, a telecommunications company and a soft drink company.

Virgin made its first commercial trip between San Francisco and New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport in August and announced a series of rollouts through the rest of the year at Los Angeles International, Washington's Dulles International Airport and McCarran.

When Virgin America announced flights between Las Vegas and San Francisco, it set its competitors in motion and before long, a fare war erupted, giving Bay Area consumers good reason to come to Las Vegas.

Virgin announced $44 one-way fares between Las Vegas and San Francisco, meaning that with taxes, people could make a round trip for around $100.

Meanwhile, Southwest Airlines, the Las Vegas market leader, was cooking up a surprise for Virgin America — head-to-head competition on the route. Southwest already had flights to and from nearby San Jose and Oakland, but nothing into San Francisco.

Not only did Southwest match Virgin's $44 fares, it more than doubled the number of daily flights Virgin offered. Virgin is kicking off service with three round trips a day; Southwest began in August with seven a day and it's keeping all its flights to and from San Jose and Oakland.

Southwest is counting on customer loyalty to win the battle with Virgin, since the upstart has quite a product on paper.

Virgin America is offering two-class service on its Airbus A319 and A320 twin-engine jets. Virgin's fleet is brand new while Southwest has a handful of 700-series Boeing 737 jets that just rolled off the assembly line near Seattle. Most Southwest jets are a little older.

Southwest has a frequent-flier program called Rapid Rewards that is touted year after year as one of the best in the industry. Virgin is countering with eleVAte, a program that will deliver free flights to customers based on the amount of money spent for tickets. The airline also has teased that frequent fliers might someday be awarded trips to space — a reference to Branson's interest in commercial space flights and space tourism.

Like Southwest, Virgin has leather seats. But unlike Southwest, Virgin has a state-of-the-art entertainment system in seatbacks that is even more elaborate than the system deployed by another low-cost darling, jetBlue.

Leave it to an airline that has corporate connections with a telecommunications company and entertainment media stores to come up with Red, Virgin's in-flight entertainment system.

Red has 9-inch video touch screens that will help passengers maneuver through an array of features. They include live DISH satellite TV with 18 channels, including ESPN, E!, A&E, CNN and Bravo; 25 pay-per-view movies; a music system with 3,000 on-board MP3 files to choose from; video games, including Doom (the system also has parental controls); Google-produced maps to track flight progress; an on-board chat feature to communicate with other passengers; and a food-ordering feature to let flight attendants know when you want food and drinks and what kind of food you want.

If you'd rather move around, you can stroll to the back of the cabin where there are self-serve mini-bars.

Virgin calls itself a cashless airline. Whenever passengers place an order — for food or for a movie on demand — they'll swipe a credit card across a reader built into the video screen to pay for the purchase.

Another innovation offered by Virgin is a power port. At each seat, passengers can plug electronic devices into a 110-volt outlet. Eventually, customers will be able to plug their mobile devices and iPhones into ports.

Dimming the cabin lights will take on a whole new dimension for Virgin. The company has developed "mood lighting" on each aircraft with nine settings that will change from dawn to dusk, depending on the outside light.

Is it possible that first-class amenities are even better? It is.

The first-class seats will have a 165-degree recline. Considering that 90 degrees is sitting straight up and 180 degrees is lying flat on your back, 165 sounds like a pretty comfortable position. The first-class leather seats also have a massage feature.

The amenities offered on Virgin's flights are tailor-made for transcontinental travel. You aren't going to be able to watch many in-flight movies on a 90-minute Vegas-to-San Francisco flight.

It's hard to say where Virgin will go next — and how significantly Las Vegas will fit in the company's plans. A spokeswoman for the company said Virgin probably isn't going to announce its plans until early next year. The company plans to add 30 cities within five years.

Would the airline connect the dots with existing cities, setting up head-to-head competition with jetBlue to Washington and New York, Southwest and United to Washington and US Airways and American to New York? Or are there other East Coast or Midwest destinations on the horizon for Virgin?

Will passengers abandon their loyalties to existing airlines and try out Virgin's amenity-filled menu?

With Virgin Atlantic delivering thousands of Brits to Las Vegas every month, it may make sense for the airline to cross-market its American counterpart and offer a greater array of packages to the Southwest and West Coast.

Whatever the plan, it's great for Las Vegas that an aviation up-and-comer made the city one of its first destinations.

In other tourism news:

US Airways — it's official: Last week US Airways received a single operating certificate from the Federal Aviation Administration, the final step in the merger of US Airways and America West Airlines.

Now, all the merged airline has to do is straighten out its messy labor agreements.

Two years after the two carriers became one operationally, the company still has no signed contracts with three unions in four employee groups. Still at odds with the company are the International Association of Machinists, who represent nearly 3,000 mechanics and nearly 8,000 baggage handlers and fleet service workers; the Association of Flight Attendants, which represents more than 7,000 flight attendants; and possibly the most difficult negotiation, the Air Line Pilots Association, which represents about 4,500 pilots.

It's difficult for the airline to work with the pilots because the former America West and US Airways groups are battling each other. Seniority and pay are the key issues, with former US Airways fliers wanting to be brought up to America West levels before negotiating raises and the former America West pilots wanting pay increases as well.

Flight attendants have had informational pickets at several terminals, including McCarran, and the union plans another picket in Phoenix later this month.