Jaunted

On plans for cities after Chicago:
Straight from Cush's mouth, we hear that Texas will be VA's next route after Chicago. They haven't yet decided if it'll be Dallas from Los Angeles for the merging of music and tech industries, or Austin from San Francisco, for their own tech and entertainment sectors and of course the SXSW festival. Texans—it's time to start barraging Virgin America's Facebook page with support for your city!

On the importance of Las Vegas:
When we noticed that VA was offering special rates for those traveling to the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Vegas in January, we wondered just how important is Vegas to the burgeoning airline. David says that he feels confident enough with the many daily flights they have to Vegas from both New York and San Francisco, that they won't be expanding on Vegas until possibly 2011, with their next short haul flight, from Los Angeles. The CES special flows naturally with the airline's demographic and the SF route, and they'll offer such discounts if in the future if the event matches well with VA.

On the possibility of international routes:
They've got to watch the balance of short-haul, long-haul and cold weather routes, says Cush. Virgin America would be "cautious of starting both Chicago and Toronto at the same time, since they are weak in the winter." So instead they'll be focusing on Chicago for now, the one city they've had their eyes on longest.

On Virgin America's holiday plans
Thanks to Google's giving all Virgin America flights free access to the in-flight WiFi through early January, each passenger already gets a little gift. But Cush assures us that they "may have a few other surprises," like free food and drink or free movie for the plane. It'll be on a flight-by-flight basis though, but Cush loves how with the RED entertainment system, all the flight crew has to do is push a button to make the free stuff flow. We're loving that too.

What to expect next from Virgin America
Next week, VA will launch a new channel lineup on the RED entertainment systems, and a fresh menu follows in January 2010. The end of January will bring a new website for VA, and of course hopefully the announcement of flights to Chicago.

What would you like to see from Virgin America? Are you on Team Dallas or Team Austin? Let us know in the comments!

Related Stories:
· Chatting With Virgin America CEO David Cush [Jaunted]
· Virgin American coverage [Jaunted]
· Other Jaunted interviews [Jaunted]

[Photo: LIFE/Getty]