Seen on Towelroad

A notice about Virgin America's new service and a request for reviews from readers. Since I flew Virgin out to SF on Tuesday, I felt like I had a good basis for comparison, and my recent trip with Continental to and from Oslo also seemed apt. Airlines have always tried to make their transatlantic flights more upscale, although Continental is apparently bucking that trend. So, I commented. Now, the story on Towelroad has mysteriously disappeared. Ho hum. Another attempt to get in with the blogosphere glitterati has been thwarted. Drat! That said, I should probably mention what it was like on the shimmery, new Virgin America.

I had a 7am flight. I know that this sounds murderous, but I've learned that early flights are less likely to be delayed than later flights and I was trying my best. I didn't want to relive my holiday experience of spending eight hours in JFK when my flight to PR got cancelled. The flight was out of the international terminal and despite my kind-of timely arrival at the ticketing counter and very quick run through the check in, the line to get through security was recoculous. Representatives from Virgin and other airlines were trying to pull their passengers out of line for expedited clearance, and the TSA reps kept shutting them down, but not effectively enough to prevent everyone from being frustrated at the sheer chaos of the process. Someone in front of me, after noting that only two of the available eight lanes for security clearance were open, commented that the TSA has done more to screw up air travel in the states than the terrorists ever could.

Once on board, I was... a bit skeebed out by the decor. The seat was exceptionally comfortable and the entertainment system looked very good. However, the white, melamine tray on the seat back in front of me looked tacky and felt flimsy. VA is all proud of their "mood lighting" but it made me feel like I was inside a limo in Atlantic City with hookers and Soprano's rejects.


We left a bit late but made up for it in the air. The people in my row were older and very befuddled by the food service. VA has passengers order through the entertainment system, so even if the cart is rolling down the aisle they won't serve you unless you've punched in your order first. The crew were just fine. I thought that one young lady seemed like her perkiness was stretched to the limit, but she never snapped. Pity. Everyone was very helpful. I suppose it was necessary since many of the passengers were frustrated with the food-through-the-television thing. The entertainment system itself had a good selection of music (no surprise), both as a streaming channel or as a playlist you create yourself. They also had music videos on demand, nice! There were a couple of channels on the television that I wanted to watch, but they were blanks with a notice that a subscription was necessary. Also, my screen had to reboot at one point. (At least, that's what I think it was doing when it wouldn't work for a while.) Otherwise, I was very happy with the entertainment system.

Overall, I was very happy with my flight, in spite of the assault on my aesthetics. I was also very happy with the price, since they're charging what JetBlue would have if they hadn't become the greedy, huge corporation in small, friendly clothing that they are.