David Bailey

LAX to JFK on VA - Virgin America


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Checking In
This is probably the best part of the whole VA experience. You walk past a couple normal (boring) airlines and arrive at VA. The music is playing. The ceiling is dark. The lights are purple. It just feels cool. There's few travelers here, because there are only a few VA flights.

Security
VA can't help here. You're in line with everyone else. But their terminal is joined with V Australia (Virgin's Australia Airline) which means there are cool Aussies in the line with you.

The Gate
Pretty standard. I'm starting to realize most VA employees are about 10 years younger than the industry average. Maybe they're 30 instead of 40? A young airline needs a young staff? Doesn't really matter in the end.

Boarding
Same as every other big-box airline. Boarding groups lead to standing in a line on the jetway leads to a wait on the plane. The plane is pretty standard. A couple purple lights instead of white lights. Some light music in the background, but nothing like I was expecting given the experience in checking in.

Preflight
Actually this part is kinda cool. The safety material located in your seat-back pocket is kinda funny. The safety video has these 'Virgin' sketch-figures and a couple decent jokes.

Red
Red is VA's inflight entertainment system. There's a touchscreen in the back of the seat in front of you and a controller in the armrest. It's pretty lame. The touchscreen doesn't work well, the menus are not intuitive and you have to pay for a bunch of the content. There's the standard fare of any airline: movies, TV, music, a map. No clock, but there is a timezone setting. The lady next to me is watching some show about celebrities and plastic surgery. You order food through the touchscreen as well.

Food
I ordered food before the plane reached 10k feet. It took until Denver before i got it. There was some turbulence, but it also seems like the complex ordering system w/ a plethora of options causes some delays. Flight attendants had to help a couple passengers figure it out. Also, apparently what you order is not always what you get. I ordered some veggie sandwich, but when the flight attendant got to me, she said there was some mistake and they didn't have any veggie sandwiches. I got a tapas plate instead which consisted of some cheeses, veggies and crackers. It was really good.

Seats
Standard.

Other Passengers
Maybe a little younger crowd, but nothing out of the ordinary for a LA -> NY flight at the start of a new college year. The two New Yorkers behind me talk for a while. One works in financial services industry and the other owns a fashion line.

Inflight Internet
$12. I'm not going to pay for Internet on a redeye. I'd rather sleep. I could post this now, but really, who's going to read it at midnight?

Sleep
About 2 hours in I fall asleep for the duration of the flight. Out like a baby.

Arrival
Same old, same old. Land. Get bags. Leave.
sunrise in NYC
sunrise in NYC

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