Has a Space Trip With King of the World Leo DiCaprio Been Overbooked?
“I’m king of space!”
Actor Leonardo DiCaprio sure knows how to sell tickets — both on Earth and in space. But, has Virgin Galactic overbooked his flight?
A trip on a Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo suborbital vehicle with the superstar actor was auctioned off for 700,000 euros ($954,000) recently at the annual amfAR auction near Cannes, France. The charity benefits AIDS research.
Space.com reports three other seats on the flight have already been auctioned off on the scheduled 2015 flight for a combined $3.8 million. Richard Branson’s business-jet style space tourism vehicle is designed to carry two pilots and six passengers.
However, reports have come into Parabolic Arc indicating that the passenger load will be reduced to four due to modifications that have added weight to SpaceShipTwo. Reportedly, the reduction is still required even though Virgin Galactic has switched to a more powerful plastic engine from a rubber one.
This raises the question of whether the DiCaprio flight has been overbooked. Imagine spending nearly a million dollars on a flight and getting bumped! Virgin Galactic will have offer more than a $300 toward a future flight and a hotel voucher for something like that.
3 responses to “Has a Space Trip With King of the World Leo DiCaprio Been Overbooked?”
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I think DiCaprio’s ticket comes out of the money raised. I think that’s the way these things usually work. I’d be surprised if VG gave away tickets. I doubt they can afford it.
The X Prize Foundation had a fund-raiser where they auctioned off a fly to space with a celebrity ticket on SpaceShipTwo. The celebrity, as it were, was Peter Diamandis. Someone bid sufficiently that Diamandis got his ticket paid for. Free trip to space for Peter, two tickets sold for VG, and the rest was given to the non-profit.
You’re supposing he will be back from the first trip, which is unsubstantiated. The real question is should they charge more for the possibility to die with DiCaprio?
I highly doubt that VG is anywhere near determining who goes on which flight yet. Overbooked, bumping, etc. are basically meaningless right now since they don’t have a flight schedule. Also, if the number of seats have yet to be determined, how would they even begin to schedule seats on each flight?
Again, this feels like an unnecessary jab at Virgin to show a lack of structure and foresight, as if they haven’t already thought this through.
I don’t know, I could be wrong. Does anyone know if they’ve determined seating arrangements for flight numbers yet?