They are the screams you don’t want to hear when flying. “Brace. Brace. Out this way. Out this way. Jump. Jump. Keep moving . . .” Maybe it’s time to stop the interview.

“Don’t worry,” shrugs Virgin Atlantic boss Steve Ridgway, “it’ll be finished in a minute.” A round of applause punctuates the shrieks. Emergency over. That’s a relief.

Actually, we’re not flying at all, just pretending to, sitting among a clutch of mock-fuselages at Virgin Atlantic’s giant new Crawley training centre. It looks a great place for an interview until we discover 20 cabin crew holed up inside, already preparing their crash and burn bale-out.

An apt metaphor for the airline business right now? Ridgway wilfully misinterprets that one. “We’ve had only one incident in our 25-year history, when the undercarriage on a plane wouldn’t come down properly,” he says quietly. “We got about 140 passengers out in 50 seconds of the plane stopping. It’s down to this training. So, what were we talking about?”

These are interesting times for Virgin Atlantic, founded by Sir Richard Branson and now celebrating its 25th anniversary in the worst downturn for half a century. It wants a merger with short-haul rival BMI, recently bought by German giant Lufthansa. At the same time it is slashing prices in a sales drive to prop up faltering demand.

For Ridgway, the quiet controller who has headed Virgin Atlantic for over a decade, it hasn’t been easy. Overshadowed by Branson, he has built the airline into a canny competitor without much acclaim. A tie-up with BMI would be an ambitious extension of his empire, but don’t expect him to confirm anything just yet.

“There’s more things we can do with this business. I just want to make sure the company can go on growing,” he nods.

Pinched and lugubrious-looking, selfeffacing in manner, Ridgway makes for an unusual airline boss. He is determinedly upbeat but lacks the brio and intensity of rivals like BA’s Willie Walsh and Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary. At 57, he is just a year younger than his friend and mentor Branson, with whom he shares a gently hesitant speaking style.

They bonded over a sick bucket on the Virgin Challenger attempts to break the Atlantic-by-boat record in the 1980s. Ridgway, a former teacher-turned-boatbuilder, was project manager, and both men suffered terrible sea sickness. That was a stunt Branson sponsored to get some much-needed publicity for his new airline, launched with just one leased plane.

Twenty-five years later, Virgin Atlantic has a fleet of 38, flying 30 regular long-haul routes to America, Africa, India and the Caribbean — and Ridgway is its longest-serving boss. Despite his non-aviation background, he has proved an adept organiser and marketer, allowing the airline to punch above its weight with cleverly crafted service innovations aimed at a younger business audience than rival BA.

It rubbed that in last week with a new television advertisement, depicting a gaggle of superbabe stewardesses, dressed in tight Virgin red, striding through a grey 1980s airport to a Frankie Goes to Hollywood beat.

Think of Helmut Newton’s iconic photo of Amazonian nudes in high heels and you get the picture. Happy 25th. The only surprise is that Branson himself isn’t featured, but that’s intentional. Since 2007, the founder has been president, not chairman, of Virgin Atlantic, and is used more sparingly for PR and political clout. It should mean the determinedly low-key Ridgway is now becoming more visible.