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Virgin America for Business Travel - No Go
Posted by Scott on 6th December, 2007 | 22 commentsVirgin America is a new discount air travel option to/from San Francisco, Vegas, L.A., NYC, and Washington DC.
The Good:
- The planes appear to be brand new.
- The in-flight touch screen entertainment system (called “Red”) is great, with movies, live TV, games, and the ability to order drinks and food from the touch screen. Internet access is supposed to be coming at some point.
- The seats in coach are black luxury leather and are comfortable.
- Fares are pretty cheap, for now anyway, but look out for nickel and dime charges like exit row upgrades.
The Bad:
- Several travelers I’ve spoken with have reported 1-2 hour flight delays and I experienced a 2 hour delay on my flight to Vegas. They cited a weather delay even though there was no bad weather anywhere that the plane was flying from or to.
- Virgin America lost a bag of a traveler I spoke with on a direct flight, and found it a few hours later.
- I personally don’t care for the blue mood lighting in the plane. It feels like a night club and gave me a bit of a headache.
- The pilots wear dressy-casual clothes like slacks and a leather jacket, not a professional pilot suit with a captain’s hat as is traditional for other airlines. This may be silly, but I think a pilot’s formal dress reflects their professionalism for the task they’re performing and their committment to conform to the highest standards. Informal wear just comes across as sloppy and overly relaxed for the operators of a $50M airplane with 150 people on-board.
- $40 change fee (vs. no change fee on Southwest)
Because of the delays and the lost bag report, I recommend avoiding this airline until they work out the kinks, despite the great entertainment system. I prefer Southwest, United, and American for now. If Virgin solves the flight delays and adds Internet access to their planes, they’ll probably win me over, though that mood lighting is really very annoying to me.
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Thursday, December 6th, 2007 at 10:05 am and is filed under Web Business. If you like this post why not subscribe to my full text RSS feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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Scott:
You state, “Several travelers I’ve spoken with have reported 1-2 hour flight delays and I experienced a 2 hour delay on my flight to Vegas. They cited a weather delay even though there was no bad weather anywhere that the plane was flying from or to.”
Regardless the FAA flow control determines the weather delays regardless of weather at the departing or arriving airport.
Brent
None of other airlines were delayed so it was more likely a virgin america glitch, not an FAA/traffic/weather issue.
Give me the Flight Number and date and I will find out for you.
Brebt
03-Dec-2007 VX 763
SFO is a bad place to base an airline, especially as your hub, the summer fog and winter rain, is enough to kill any airline start up. this was a bad choice ask any seasoned flight attendant about sfo, and listen for the groans, sighs, and tears.
they should have based out of southern cal were the bells and whistle would have been more appealing. silicon valleys way to practical to be simply be wooed by all the bells and whistles. technology moves to fast. the maintenance and upgrade costs alone that customers will demand will be costly.
the techs cool, but thats not going to build an airline. and after you spend $150 on mini bar, food, and pay per view, how can you call that a discount airlines.
ever heard of pan am, braniff, ata, aloha, twa, etc….
I definitely agree though I do wish them the best of luck. They are doing some innovative things and trying to make flying hip and fun, they just picked a really bad time in our economy to launch an airline startup.
My understanding is that baggage handlers are not airline employees.
As to the uniforms, well, you can put a monkey in a suit, but that doesn’t mean it can fly the plane. Casual needn’t mean sloppy, and the west coast is predominantly casual. That’s no reflection on the training and professionalism of the staff - and they are wearing uniforms!
Mood lighting not to your taste? I’d say it’s a lot more appealing that standard aircraft lighting.
And it’s not a question of “if” they add internet access; but “when”, as they’ve already announced it’s coming (and I believe they were the first airline to do so).
“Mood lighting not to your taste? I’d say it’s a lot more appealing that standard aircraft lighting.”
I’m curious if you’ve flown with them or if you’re reacting to the photo? I thought it was cool too, until I spent an hour and a half basking in a purple glow. All it needed was blasting music, reserved tables, and some Grey Goose, and I’d be in a club. It made the flight seem disorienting.
“And it’s not a question of “if” they add internet access; but “when”, as they’ve already announced it’s coming (and I believe they were the first airline to do so).”
Lufthansa and several other airlines tried Boeing’s Connexion in flight internet service in 2004/2005 but it was canceled. I do hope Virgin (and others) adds it because it will make flights much more productive.
I’ve flown VA several times transcon.
Forgot about Connexion - it was so short-lived!
Transcon? Then you mean you flew Virgin Atlantic. Do they have the mood lighting in Virgin Atlantic as well?
[…] Virgin America for Business Travel - No GoBy ScottVirgin America lost a bag of a traveler I spoke with on a direct flight, and found it a few hours later. I personally don’t care for the blue mood lighting in the plane. It feels like a night club and gave me a bit of a headache. …W Revenue dot Com - http://www.wrevenue.com […]
Transcontinental. From one coast to the other. Virgin America, not Virgin Atlantic.
Richard Branson is one of my idols so I hate to see any criticisim of anything he does.
Is VA looking to compete with the Locost airlines like SW?
I think Branson is great too. I was there in Mojave, CA the day that Spaceshipone won the X-Prize and I support his stuff. I think the concept of Virgin America is great, but I just call it like I see it. I don’t think they want to be known as a discount airline because of the luxuries that they offer (in seat entertainment, leather seats etc).
Well as for delays, its kinda hit and miss, if an earilier flight is delayed it creates a domino effect for all the fights that plane is used for. So the “weather delay” could have been bad weather earilier in the day or if your plane was used on a transcon before your LAS trip and the east coast had bad weather. As for Pliots attire, i think the style makes them more approachable. Casual dress makes me forget they are flying “$50M airplane with 150 (lives) people on-board” and i’m thinking there goes just another guy/girl at work. Makes them more approachable. It is kinda intimidating when you see a pliot in full uniform in the cockpit, you don’t wanna just wave and say high cuz they look so professional and i fear intrupting them from whatever they are doing.
FYI, VirginAmerica.com’s internal corporate/intranet site linked to this blog post a few days ago. So, some or all of the comments here could be VA employees or PR people.
Just flew Virgin America direct (SFO to SAN) last night. Checked in 90 minutes early with one bag. My bag was lost and delivered to me from LAX this morning. Also, flight arrived 20 minutes late and left 20 minutes late. Bad first experience for me, but the other benefits are cool enough for me the give it one more try…
I cant stand it when a reporter who travels alot considers him/herself an aviary professional… Perhaps you all should lay off the airline industry as 110 dollar per barrel of oil is already enough to force an air carrier into “closing their main cabin door”. The last thing they need is the negative comments of what one very eager blogger has to say. Blue Skys…
Oh I see, we should just look the other way when an airline provides crappy service so as to not harm the industry. Airlines are like any other industry: they are subject to the same capitalistic advantages and disadvantages and weak businesses can and should fail. And by the way, I used to be a pilot - so I have some perspective on flying beyond the average joe. If the airlines are hurting, they should raise prices — flying is too cheap IMO — businesses will afford the increased rates and consumers will just save up and fly less frequently.
It’s my hope that virgin america turns out to be a great airline, and that the problems I mentioned in my post are related to startup/new operations.
Coach Designer Handbags
I found your site on technorati and read a few of your other posts. Keep up the good work. I just added your RSS feed to my Google News Reader. Looking forward to reading more from you.
Dear Scott…..if you used to be a pilot then by all means you know more than anyone (and myself) that the airline does paycuts before they raise ticket prices. How many times has US Airways done paycuts now on mainline (perfect example)? I am a flight attendant so I surely know how the payscale works out with airlines. Sure they will cut ends here and there if need be but where does the real fat get cut? The employees wallets! I personally know flight attendants at Virgin and thus far that isn’t even a discussion, let alone an issue.
I’m a private pilot not ATP.
I don’t have anything against this airline. These comments were based on my own personal experience. I haven’t yet had occasion to try them again but I’ll update this post when I do.