Investors are much more likely to lend you lots of money when the debt is secured. Airplanes are pretty good securities against default; they don't depreciate quickly. If you default on your payments, the airplanes will be repossessed and the creditors will get most of their money back.

Seat-back monitors, on the other hand, are nearly worthless after installation. They're tied to the planes they're in; the technology obsoletes quickly; and they can't easily be resold. So the risk to the creditor in percentage terms is much greater.

So, indeed, in absolute terms, there's more at stake for the creditors (10M vs 2.5B), but if I were a creditor, I know what I'd feel safer betting on.

Because they used the 2.5 billion to buy planes which they used to make money.

They were already making money with the planes they had, realistically they can't suddenly make £10s of millions more just because they have replaced those with new planes. They can buy/set up new routes but that's going to be more cost.

They only way I see it working is something with investors, but how does that work with a public company, surely not a new share class?

Most likely option I see is that this is mainly spin from Branson??

Yes it's a spin by Branson to suggest that the planes were the solution to seat back entertainment. They'd have done the planes anyway because it's grow or die.

The bigger risk today is Wow! and norweigan airlines with cheap flights.

But I've always found virgin to be a good experience for a fair price. On transatlantic flights, BA is more expensive for less and the American carriers are just awful. They get away with it because their hub-spoke routes have little competition.