system

Most of Richard Branson’s world-record aviation stunts in the past were to get free publicity for his various non-aviation ventures, and that worked well. (He was not a rated pilot on any of those vehicles.)

This flight is similar in terms of PR, but also to demonstrate that somebody can safely come back, or not.

I followed the Virgin Airline corona-related shutdown in Australia, and it looks like they Virgin was ineligible for govt. bailouts since they were substantially foreign-owned or registered. Maybe somebody can provide an update on how that turned out.

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system

I don’t know what the actual costs of his ‘stunts’ ran to, but I suspect that they were well beyond the (admittedly low) limits of my own wallet.

How does this equate to ‘free’ publicity?

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system

Most of his stunts were in 2-person balloons or airplanes, which cost less than 10% of the equivalent PR budget.

If you’re too poor to afford a 2-person balloon, I guess you need to work harder, no?