Virgin America: IAD to SFO
Flying Virgin America for the first time yesterday from DC to San Francisco made the 5 hour trip go by a little better. Most airlines seem to have neutral cabins and a dull, sterile feeling better suited for a doctor's office. Virgin feels more like a modern nightclub or lounge, from the comfortable black leather seats to the subtle purple lighting. The best part is Red, the "(beta) interactive environment" touch screen attached in front of you. A small remote tethered by a cord clicks out of your armrest, and one side has video and volume controls, while the other has a keyboard and video game controls.
So I watched some TV (which was hit or miss, as it was through the Dish network and often flickered in and out or lost the signal), watched a few free short films (you could view full movies for $8 apiece), ordered a Coke via their screen-based menu (soft drinks were free, but they had all sorts of food and snacks to buy with a swipe of a credit card), played a few games (Doom and some casual puzzles), arranged a playlist and listened to music (covering everything from the Kronos Quartet to Hannah Montana), chatted via seat-to-seat instant messaging with April (although she was sitting right next to me and the novelty wore out in two minutes, and no one was in any of the plane chat rooms), and tracked the current flight information with a little Google Maps interface. At one point I think I tried to do too much at once, because a little "out of memory" warning kept on flashing up (luckily I somehow figured out how to reboot the system).
It was a great experience overall, and I would definitely recommend checking them out for cross-country flights. And since you'll probably save a few bucks from all their promotions going on now, maybe you can save up the $200K for a ticket when Virgin Galactic launches in a couple of years.
Monday, October 8 at 10:41 AM
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