What Is Awesome

I’m writing this post about 37,000 feet in the air … just over Kansas … on Virgin America, a brand that has managed to create an incredible experience for its guests. Let me give you a brief taste of how incredible this airline is:

Part One: Check-In

I flew from Boston Logan to LAX and am writing this post on my return trip to the east coast. Walking into the terminal, one is greeted with a classy almost club-like atmosphere that continues throughout the journey for the most part

The Self Check-In system is very clean and elegant:

You slide your credit card along the right side of the display and your boarding pass pops out (like toast!) of the small slot to the left.

After check-in varies a bit by airport. At Logan, VA has its own very quick security line leading to two gates. There isn’t much in there and you can’t really leave once you’re through the metal detectors. At LAX, there’s a lot more available to do once you’re inside the gating area. I jumped to the conclusion that VA must treat its employees quite well, as I noticed they all have matching luggage while I was waiting to board:

Part 2: Getting Comfy & Red

OK, so let’s say we’re on the plane. What’s so awesome? Pretty much everything. Let’s start with a tour of  Red. The in-flight “interactive environment” is central to pretty much everything on-board.

There are a few ways to use it, either via the touch-screen at every seat, or by the remote control in each armrest:

I tend to grasp at gadgets quickly. Too quickly, sometimes. After a minute or so of playing around, it was time for the ultimate airline safety video:

Part 3: In the Air

And we’re off! Let’s finish the tour of Red since it’s not activated until after the safety video. There are a number of modules built into the system. I’ll describe them each in no particular order.

One of the convenient things about VA is that instead of flight attendants running through the cabin every few hours asking if you’d like to buy food or drinks, it’s all done through Red. (They do a single run-through for drinks early on, then it’s up to you). So if you want to get some nosh, bang on “Eat” or hit the corresponding button on the remote with a cake icon on it and look around.  As you can see above, if you’re watching TV, it appears as PIP as you browse the selections.

One of the other neat and unrelated things about the TV part is that if you bring up the program guide, you can tap a show that will air at a later time and it will pop up later with a reminder.

Ordering food and drinks is just like shopping online, you pick out what you want, add it to a cart, and then pay by credit card. You can swipe your card on the underside of the display.

It goes without saying that Red’s primary service is for in-flight video:

TV and Music Videos are free, the rest are a nominal fee. Premium TV includes content like HBO specials.

Besides watching things, there’s also a pretty extensive audio library in addition to satellite radio. You can use the system to create your own playlist too.

There are also games!

Now imagine my surprise when I saw this. Doom? Awesome! Here’s what it looks like:

You can play via the touch screen, which doesn’t really work for Doom, but that’s OK, because if you flip the remote control over, you’ve got a D-pad, action buttons, and full QWERTY keyboard:

Oh,  you can also use it to purchase items through Red with your credit card!  Check it out– I used my MetroCard for show:

There are a plethora of other neat options to play around with, including built in Google maps services with the plane’s current altitude and position, and remaining distance:

So let’s see, what else is there… each group of three seats has two standard 110v power plugs so you don’t need to drop extra cash on a special converter or anything. For those of you equipped with a laptop, that means that you can stay powered for your whole trip. Not only that, you can fly wireless! VA offers wifi access through GoGo for $12.95 per trip. I personally think it would be better to pay for wireless while in the terminal and get it free on the plane too, not so bad though. The speeds are also really great:

There is also really bright LED lighting above each seat instead of the standard incandescent bulbs.

At the end of each flight, I thought it was pretty clever how to wake everyone up, the crew just turns them all on at once. I guess at this point I should also mention that instead of typical white lighting inside the cabin, there’s really cool dark blue and purple mood lighting along the ceiling and walls. It’s like a club in the air.

So that’s it! I’ve loved the experience immensely and highly suggest flying them. It was just $119 from BOS to LAX one-way, grab a flight today at VirginAmerica.com. It’s really great to see that Richard Branson & company has dumped what I can only guess is a ton of money into the Virgin America brand, delivering a first-class experience with an economy price. The stuff they’re doing has to be keeping the folks at Southwest and JetBlue up at night.

This post is tagged Air Travel, Virgin America