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Our Virgin America Tour: Seating Tips and More

March 14, 2007 at 10:25 AM | 0 Comments


For all you SeatGuru addicts, here's a good one: seat picks for a plane you can't even touch yet. Yesterday, we told you what to expect throughout the entire Virgin America cabin. Today, we'll tell you what specific economy seats you'll be fighting to the death for once VA launches.

Your exit rows on the A320 are rows 9 and 10. The window seats are A and F; aisle seats are C and D. But those aren't the only pimp rows on the plane. As you can see our red-eyed model demonstrating above, row 3 is the place to be. We can't make any promises about it being baby-free (as kids are often assigned to bulkhead seats), so it's up to you to pray. The IFE screens are as adjustable as any others on the plane (unusual for bulkhead rows), and you get a foot rest of sorts at the bottom of the divider. You also get a peek at the beautiful people in first class.

Another important thing to know about Virgin America is that they're not even done with Red, the on-demand IFE system, yet. As you've been told before, they'll eventually start accepting submissions from Linux game developers. Once VA...eventually...launches, they're not going to give up their IFE throne easily. We saw a lot of bits and pieces of new technology being developed for the already impressive system. Now we feel like Gizmodo covering the Apple iPhone launch: unhealthily obsessed and geeked to the gills. But we can't help it.

Related Stories:
· Our Virgin America Tour: In the Belly of the Beast [Jaunted]
· Let VA Fly [Official Site]

A first class video after the jump.

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Our Virgin America Tour: In the Belly of the Beast

March 13, 2007 at 9:40 AM | 2 Comments



Welcome to the Virgin America A320. Our name is Jaunted and we'll be your guide. If you're wondering how the impending launch of this value airline--so dubbed because no one's yet sure about exact pricing--will affect your travels, read on. And you should be wondering, because the legacy airlines are shaking in their boots. That's usually a good sign.

Steerage:
Let's start with the coach cabin. It's a 3x3 seat configuration with mood lighting throughout the cabin. HotelChatter editor Juliana, upon viewing the above video, perfectly compared the moodily lit environment to that of a tanning bed. This is too, too true, but we liked it and actually found it relaxing. The lighting will be adjusted based on the time of day you're in flight. That's a bonus if you wear contacts, which can make your eyes super light sensitive after a long red eye flight.

Now for the seats themselves.

More, including a photo gallery, after the jump.

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Our Virgin America Tour: Charles Ogilvie, Internet Superstar

March 12, 2007 at 4:58 PM | 0 Comments

That sound you hear is the sound of us breaking the fourth wall, or at least dropping the "royal we" for a moment.


In case you haven't noticed, my byline avatar is a floating head in a pink heart. The head belongs to Charles Ogilvie, Virgin America's Director of In-Flight Entertainment & Partnerships. It's been there ever since Jaunted discovered his magically animated eyebrows and come-hither smirk on YouTube. I point it out because you'd otherwise have no point of reference for understanding just how awkward Friday, March 9 was for me. It was the day Jaunted (Publisher Mark G. Johnson and myself, your humble editor) toured the Virgin America offices and infiltrated the company's growing fleet of planes at SFO.

Now, Virgin America is still awaiting clearance from the DOT, so we weren't able to take one of these birds up. Yet the mood in the office's headquarters is far more positive than ours has been at times concerning the Virgin America launch outlook. They expect to start flying this summer, and their optimism has rubbed off on us. We have now gone from "skeptical" to "cautiously optimistic" concerning their summer launch.

In order to arrive on time for our tour, I made the journey from JFK to SFO on practically no sleep, which means I can tell you first hand something you probably already know--the East Coast to San Francisco is NOT a fun flight. It's pretty damn long, and aside from one carrier's well known 36 channel entertainment package, there isn't much to do. That's where VA's newfangled entertainment system comes in. Since cross-country flights are lucrative routes, plagued by passenger boredom, VA was smart enough to install an entertainment system that kicks things up a notch. But more on that later.

For now, VA is leasing gutted planes to offset costs during the grounding phase. It is important to note that the sub-leases, to SkyBus and the like, will only include gutted planes, so no VA "experience" until the Virgin is airborne.

The tease continues, with photos post-jump.

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