by aaron on January 13, 2010
I mentioned in a previous post that I was a little worried about how stringent security would be now that the undie-bomber was caught (by a passenger, not the TSA). This morning I got on my flight to San Jose, CA for my quarterly meetings at the corporate HQ. The security line was really long but moved pretty well. I was amazed that there were so many people traveling at 6 in the morning but Terminal 5 at JFK was jumping.
I didn’t see any real increase in security, although my bag was searched. That was due to my having a device for my GPS to attach to the dashboard of my rental car and not the windshield, complying with California State laws. It just goes to show that there are too many little laws around. I try to comply with one and I have issues with another one. Overall it wasn’t as horrible as I expected it to be.
by aaron on April 5, 2009
I’m sitting here at SFO and waiting for my gate to be announced. This is just another example of what is wrong with Virgin America. How at 1:18pm (PDT) could they not have a gate for a 3:00pm flight?! It seems quite crazy if you ask me.
I mentioned in a previous post that I was really looking forward to my flight to SFO with Virgin America. I had heard good things about them and they seem to be ahead of the curve on the technology scale which always makes me happy. However, that in practice didn’t work out. First I’d like to talk about the pros of the airline.
- Their planes have power adapters – I can plug my laptop in and get stuff done for a longer time than I would on another airline. This is a really great concept and should be adapted by other airlines ASAP. It would make lots of business travelers happy
- Wifi on board – This is great for $12.95 I can have wifi access for my entire flight. I’m sure that the speeds are not that great (I didn’t try it on the way over, but I will do that this afternoon) but if you want email, IM or RSS feeds this is great. I can’t wait to irc with my friends while on the flight.
- Ordering System – The flight attendants stay out of the way for the majority of the flight and you order what you want from your screen. Pretty cool concept and they pull it off quite nicely.
Now that I talked about the highlights, lets touch on the lowlights
- Seat Size – unless you are a size 34 waist and are 5’7″ you are going to have problems fitting comfortably into the seats. I’m 6’1″ and it wassn’t a comfortable fit for me at all. Add to that when the seat in front of me decided to lean back and you have one unhappy flyer. Because of my horrible experience I have decided to upgrade to what they call main cabin plus. I’m praying that I have extra leg room there.
- Entertainment – while the offer more than other “budget” airlines, I really thought that the interface for doing what you wanted to do was too many steps. I also found it very slow and unresponsive. Not only that but a good number of channels from their television selection seemed to be out. Not to be fair, this happens on JetBlue as well but I get angry with them about it so there is no reason why I shouldn’t do the same with VA.
- Food – Want to have a snack on the flight? It will cost you and cost you big. I think it’s a disgrace that they can’t give you free snacks. Although the ordering system is cool $3 for a bag of popchips is beyond to pale if you ask me.