newteevee.com — Virgin America is trying to become the nation's newest low cost air carrier (complete with touch screen displays, vod, satellite tv, broadband Internet and then some), but has been denied by the Department of Transportation. Virgin makes their case in the video seen in this story and asks for the publics help in lobbying support.
Jan 17, 2007 View in Crawl 4
form3hideJan 17, 2007
Let em in!JetBlue did wonders (and still doing so), I'm sure Virgin would do the same. Competition is gooood.
thenikJan 17, 2007
If you watched the video, the only real difference between first class and coach was the seating space / seating material. The TV and ethernet, power, and USB jacks were all included in coach as well.
felchdonkeyJan 18, 2007
We definitely need more competition in our airlines! Most domestic carriers have a "f**k you" attitude for their customers, as if they were doing people a favor by letting us on to their planes. There are some decent ones, like Southwest and Jet Blue, but if I had a choice, I'd probably pick Virgin. The AC power outlets in every seat would be enough for me to choose them on their own. I'm lucky if I can find a flight with power outlets, and then they're the car lighter-type, so I need adapters.Every time I've been on a Virgin train or plane overseas, they treat their customers like we matter. It's about time we had more of that here.
ord2fraJan 18, 2007
Isn't viral for when the actual maker of the video appears to be some blogger or anyone other than the actual company responsible? This is not a viral video, it's a regular commercial.
britoverseasJan 18, 2007
Fly all the time, displaced Brit with a new hometown of Houston, TX. Continental SUCKS!!!!!!When I worked in Japan, flew Virgin all the time in "Premium Economy" (business without all the goodies, just a great seat for a 20% price premium) and they completely rock nearly all other carriers. Got upgraded to "Upper Class" a couple of times and that has to be seen to be believed. Lay flat beds, and I mean "beds", tracksuit to sleep in, masseuse, manicure, haircut, you name it, they had it, wonderful.Any opportunity I had to go back to the UK with Virgin or around the US, rather than any rude, lazy, inconsiderate US carrier would be a bargain (there is a reason that most of them are bankrupt after all), my name is solidly on the petition.
absmith1Jan 18, 2007
God, how I would love this. Anything that can kick/shame United and the other domestic carriers into delivering anything other than misery in-flight is OK by me!
zombiedogJan 18, 2007
Tech points: The USB and Ethernet plugs are there for future services. In flight broadband, as much as we want it is still too expensive to provide and not enough bandwidth to have 150 gamers and torrent jockeys going wild at altitude. But, wiring in advance will have us ready when the technology advances and costs are reasonable. In the interim, you will have a lot of entertainment available, from real time sat TV, PPV movies, music, in plane chat, etc. The controllers come out of the arm rests and have a full mini keyboard at every seat. No more having the guy behind you tap your back as he smashes the touch screen.BTW,those of us up front have some neat toys as well. The plane is fly by wire, controlled by seven computers running three hydraulic systems to steer the plane. No big control wheel, just a joystick and keyboard. Those big suitcases of maps and manuals are all contained in two electronic flight bags, having our maps, manuals and doing all the calculations we need for weight & balance and takeoff & landing performance. We won't be allowed to tap into the chat room or watch movies up front, but we do have a data link for weather data and email back to the company in flight for safety and security matters. If you are interested in the up front stuff, google NavAero for the flight bag and Airbus for the fly by wire.Service points: When you fly do you ever find yourself wanting a soda an hour after the flight attendants run through with their cart? Wish in flight service was more like a restaurant? If you need something, or want your pre ordered meal at the middle of the flight instead of the beginning, just place your order on the screen. Too many airlines have the mindset of making the customer conform to their way of doing business. I was on a flight a while back playing Bejeweled on my old Palm 515 and had a flight attendant tell me to turn it off as "some PDAs have cell phones and wifi". OK, but not this one, so I turned it off anyway, launched my laptop and discovered several people on board were working away with their wifi on. One even had their 'my music' folder open to share, but they had crappy music.
joelitoJan 18, 2007
I would sigh the petition...But the web designers forgot that there's more than the 50 states and the DC in the US.They forgot American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands among others.