Airline Fanatic

Following in the footsteps of the great Stephen Colbert, I am officially putting Virgin America’s inflight entertainment system RED on notice. RED need to get it’s act together before it really starts to hurt the rest of the airline.

I flew back from San Francisco today and, for the third leg in a row, was on a plane without a functioning entertainment system.  Right now I’m 1/4 on my Virgin America flights as far as RED goes, and that kind of experience annoys me a lot, but I have a feeling it annoys the general flying public a whole lot more.  If I were VX I would be worried that every time their “dark” plane goes aloft, there are about 100 people on board who might not come back because the reason they bought their ticket -RED- doesn’t work.

Don’t get me wrong, Virgin proved to me again today why they are a great airline and why I hope they stick around for along time.  Their people, the most important part of any organization, are outstanding, right up there with JetBlue and Southwest employees.  The agent at the check-in area put me on standby for a flight more than 4 hours before my scheduled departure when apparently VA policy says you should only do it when that flight is within 2 hours of my original departure time.  The gate agent also gave me a seat the second I walked up to gate and didn’t make me wait until the very last second for a middle seat in the back as most other airline would (that probably had something to do with the fact that the plane was no more than half full).

VX went even further and gave me something tangible for the inconvenience of not having TV for a 40 minute flight. Great.  When I went to cash in that voucher on board for a drink, the flight attendant said keep it and gave me one on the house, double great!  All these are great examples of how VA has done a great job hiring their staff, and I thank them for it.

The problem for me though, and for Virgin, is that I now have three vouchers sitting at home here good for a free drink, movie or TV show on my next flight.  I love getting free stuff, but I would love it even more if I could use some of the great technology VX has on board their fancy new planes.  It was great the one time I used it, but the prospect of not having any inflight entertainment on my next transcon will definitely way heavy on my decision to book with them in the future.

Again this isn’t even really about my experience, but the one the general, and less forgiving, flying public has with VX.  They are more than likely giving VX a try for the first time.  If they had heard great things from their friends about the cool gadgets on board VA (especially for the techy SFO crowd) they would be sorely dissapointed.

As to whether or not having a dark aircraft flying around the skies (or unreliable live aircraft) has any effect on Virgin’s return customers, only they know.  But I would hope its something they would move to correct sooner rather than later.  Virgin America’s best hope for success in the current catasrophy that is the airline industry is that their amazing staff will attract those disgruntled passengers back for another try in the future, this time when they can tune out to ESPN instead of a blank screen.

This took me a while to get up, but here is my review of Virgin America when I flew between LAX and JFK over 4th of July weekend.

Online Check in:  This was as simple as you would expect it to be. VA even sent me a reminder when it was time to check in.  Though I reserved my seat in advance, it would have been helpful had I not picked up my seat assignment previously.

At the Airport: I walked in, and since I didn’t need to check my back bypassed the VA desks.  It was nice to see a dedicated web bag drop line though.  I never understand when airlines allow you to check your bags in online and then wait in line to deliver them to an agent when you arrive at the airport.  I know JetBlue has this feature in New York, but it’s nice to see VX trying to harness some of the effeciencies of an online check in.  I can also tell some nice though went into the design and presentation of this checkin raea compared to the legacy checkin desks.  Everything about it screams “Virgin” and lets me know I am about to experience something different.  We’re off to a great start.

Upon arriving at my gate, 67A at LAX’s terminal 6, I sadly realize Virgin won’t be able to control and customize every part of the trip.  The gate is profoundly ordinary save for the flat panel telling me my flight is on time and the neon purple lighting in front of the agent’s desk.  What, no Virgintini’s for sale?  Maybe the airport wont allow it, and I’m not saying everything has to be different and unique, but some added accoutrement would be welcome here.

A VA crewmember even announced at our gate that if were in fact going to San Francisco, we should follow him.  Though I personally have never gotten on the wrong flight, apparently this man has had several experiences to the contrary.  Hey, passengers will always find ways to confound logic, so it was nice of him to check up on us anyway.

Boarding really did start when it was supposed to, and everyone was on board the plane with door closed before we were even supposed to leave the gate?  Pushing back before your scheduled departure time?  Unheard of!  Good job Virgin America.  How refreshing to be going where your supposed to be going, when you are supposed to be going.

I’m typing this on the return leg of my trip and the purple glow on my laptop keyboard is actually quite relaxing.  At least its leaps and bounds better than the standard ugly fluorescent lighting you get on every other airline.  When I got on board the pink and blue mix had a calming effect on everyone boarding.  Then when we landed the lighting felt energizing and probably helps get everyone off just that much faster.  I don’t know how many times the lighting changed in flight, or whether it depends on the time of day, but its definitely a touch unique to Virgin that is a very noticeable difference.

RED: Inflight Entertainment
I spent a good deal of time browsing through VA’s seat back entertainment system and can say I am extremely impressed with their ambitious plans for this platform.  While currently you can watch TV, listen to music, chat with other passengers and even order form your seat, there are as many features not yet available or in development.

It looks like VA is planning on letting you plugin your own digital equipment when on board and listening to it through the seatback system.  There is also a disabled “log in” option; could they be planning to tie in your eleVAte preferences with your actual seat on board?  Who knows, it definitely seems possible.  The ability to chat about what you are watching or listening to is also currently disabled, but I wonder how many people will take advantage of talking about the Yankees – Red Sox game when they have nothing better to do.

Handling the touch screen can be a little difficult, especially for those people with long fingernails.  That problem comes with just about every touch screen device though, you just have to learn how to work it right.  I haven’t felt any pounding on my head rest yet from the little fists behind me, but I can definitely see that being a problem for those people who forget there is another human head on the other side of their scrabble board.

Reliability was a major problem on this flight.  We were only able to get about 30 minutes of usability out of RED before it crashed for the entire flight and never returned.  Technology is great, when it works.  I experience this same “reset loop” several times on Delta’s cross country in flight offering.  I’m not sure why both airlines can’t seem to keep their TV’s running, but I can say I never had this problem on JetBlue (I’ve had screens not work on JetBlue before, but not reseting).  I wouldn’t expect functioning equipment out of Delta, but Virgin America, which highly touts their entertainment system, had better come up with a way to keep it running full time.

All in all, Virgin America has an excellent product and differentiates themselves nicely from other legacy and discount carriers.  Does their service and perks make me willing to pay a premium for their flights?  I think on long hauls yes, but if I’m staying on the west coast Southwest and a book will do just fine.  There are definitely some downsides to offering so much high technology in one place (think of the IT maintenance costs), but they have also raised the bar for what I should expect for what with today’s fuel prices is a bargain ticket price.  I’m sure in order to be profitable in the long run those ticket prices will have to go up, but for now Virgin has my business in the trans-con market.

Next weekend I’ll be taking Virgin from LAX to SFO, so I’ll also try to write a little piece about their short haul service.  Hopefully it lives up to my experience this time around!

Last week was not exactly good news for the commercial airline industry, with three well known carriers heading into abrupt bankruptcy and ceasing operations. Three bankruptcies does a trend make, so I started wondering if/who would be next heading to airline heaven (or hell depending on your experience).

Unfortunately for Richard Branson, my thinking lead me straight to chic new startup Virgin America. If this were the beginning of the American version of Virgin Atlantic, in which Sir Richard has controlling interest, I would be pretty certain he would not be so quick to give up on a new airline. He went through some tough times getting Virgin Atlantic to where it is today, and probably wouldn’t be afraid to burn some cash doing the same for Virgin America.

The problem in this situation however is that Virgin America is controlled by American companies and uses mostly American funds. With the high publicity and rapid succession of last week’s bankruptcies, I wouldn’t be surprised if some of those investors were now considering getting their money out while VA still has value.

Of course their decision hinges on whether or not VA’s situation is as bad as the airlines that have gone before them. Since VA is a private company, we really have no knowledge of its exact financials, but do know that in the first quarter of operation they lost $35 million, and even management doesn’t expect to make a profit any time soon. Investors had to have been prepared for all this when the signed up for the deal, but given how high fuel prices have gotten, how low VA’s load factor is on most routes, and recent current events, they could be forgiven for having cold feet.

Overall I think Virgin America has a great product that takes a long term approach to winning customers and, given the time, will prove profitable.  The only question is whether squeamish US investors will give it the opportunity to prove it’s business plan over the long run, or if short term market conditions and recent trends will take down VA prematurely.

Read on for a closer examination of Virgin America’s current status…

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The folks over at ProTraveller have a thrill seeking post up about the Top 10 Most Dangerous Aircraft Landings. There are some unsurprising picks in there (Hong Kong’s Tai Kak for example), but there were plenty that surprised me as well. The videos are really fun to watch if you are like me and enjoy seeing every minute of an approach. In case you just want to know what the airports are, here are the Top 10:

1. Kai Tak Airport, Hong Kong
2. Funchal Airport, Madeira
3. Gustaf III Airport, St. Barts
4. Courchevel Airport, France
5. Princess Julianna International Airport, St. Maarten
6. Wellington International Airport, New Zealand
7. Paro Airport, Bhutan
8. Narsarsuaq Airport, Greenland
9. Saba Island Airport, Netherlands Antilles
10. Lugano Airport, Switzerland

Now of course luck and the fates would have it that the day after I book my first trip on Virgin America they come out with a great promo code that could have saved me lots of money. Sigh. Well luckily you are now better informed than I was. Any eleVAte member can plug in the promo code dfLOoxRC03kgw to get 30% off any main cabin fair.  So what are you waiting for?  Check out some Virgin America flights on Kayak and get going with that code!

Happy travels.

UPDATE: Unfortunately it seems this coupon code was unique to my eleVAte account! Well, I wasn’t going to use it anyway so its no great loss to me, but you might be out of luck if you try this same code. For those of you with an eleVAte account though, check your inbox and spam blockers for the promotional email. And for those of you who aren’t eleVAte members, joining up (its free) may grant you access to this code. Sorry folks!

The march towards in-flight connectivity continues on at an ever faster pace. Last week JetBlue started testing their BetaBlue service, which for the time being gives its passengers access to Yahoo! Mail or corporate email via a wifi enabled Blackberry. Air France meanwhile is moving forward with their own set of tests, involving the use of cell phones (mobile phones for you European folk). Hold your horses, before you stop flying them completely, you should know this is only a test…for now.

Air France has outfitted one of their A318s with equipment that basically lets cell phones do anything in the air they can do on the ground. For the first three months of operation only data transmission will be enabled – ie text messages and Internet over the regular cell phone network. After that however voice calls will be allowed while passengers reactions are recorded via surveys at the end of every flight. Based on the results of that survey, Air France will then decide if this service should be limited to data use but no voice calls, and whether or not they will expand the service to their entire fleet.

European low cost carrier Ryanair also plans to allow mobile phone use in-flight. They are forgoing the whole “lets see how customers like it” phase and equipping all 150 aircraft in the fleet with tiny mobile phone stations. They claim customers wont mind the distractions on the shorter, busy routes Ryanair flies. I’m sure the fact that Ryanair gets a cut of the sky high (oh that was a good pun) international roaming rates customers will be charged when they use the service has nothing to do with it either.

Other airlines are getting in on the testing action as well. Qantas has been quietly testing their own in-flight data service for cellphones on a 767; with over 19,000 passengers having used the service to date. They have no plans to add voice service, but might consider going fleet wide with data service. Emirates is also equipping its entire fleet with the technology, forgoing the testing period. I think this is probably because of their desperation to have the latest and great of everything in the airline industry and less because it may actually be useful to passengers.

All the services being tested by airlines will work in the middle of the ocean, an upgrade over previous versions, because they connect via satellite, rather than via ground towers. Luckily for those of us flying in the United States, we won’t have to worry about the person next to us yelling for five hours across the country any time soon. The FTC decided earlier this year there would be no use of cellphones in flight, and we all know how fast out wonderful government can change their mind once they’ve come up with a position.

[via The Economist (subscription required)]

A visibly very disturbed passenger on a flight from London to Toronto (on board Air Canada) was caught in this YouTube post from a December 6th flight.  He is being restrained by two men on either side of him, but I can’t tell if they are inflight crew or just passenger unfortunate enough to be sitting next to him.  They do have him handcuffed though.  I wonder how long passengers had to endure this stressful stuff before he was finally subdued?