Airline appoints new vice chairman in bid to take off

With the US Department of Transport standing in its way of taking off, fledgling airline Virgin America has added one of the agency’s former leaders to its board in an effort to prove it is not beholden to foreign interests.

Samuel Skinner, the Transportation Department’s secretary under President George Bush in the late 1980s and early 1990s, will serve as Virgin America’s vice chairman in a move announced late yesterday.