Virgin America Here I come - F and Y report

[Carfield]

Hi all,

Here is my long anticipated Virgin America inaugural trip report… not really a true inaugural, as I really don’t have $2500-5000 lying around to bid for a pair of tickets on e-bay, but I am able to fly on a sort of inaugural flight – the first SFO Virgin America revenue departure. Thanks for a fellow aviation enthusiast or my secret Santa! My initial disappointment in not able to get a seat on the first SFO to JFK flight was rescued and I got a precious main cabin ticket on this historical flight. The ticket cost $308 including tax and I really don’t have a choice here.

Of course, this experience was simply tremendous because Virgin certainly knows how to hype up an inaugural and it is a great party and the employees are so enthusiastic and during my whole trip, they all made me feel welcome and always came to say hi, when they spotted your Virgin America ticket receipt and/or boarding pass.

The personal entertainment system and beverage & meal order system is brilliant, and works mainly fine except some glitches as expected. Service was a bit slower than normal as the staffs are getting used to the equipments. The seats in the main cabin are generally comfortable with an average of 32” but legroom becomes real tight, if the person in front of you reclines. More details later…

So here is the link to the photo album for those who don’t want to read on:
http://share.shutterfly.com/action/w...8QbNHDNy5bqIDg

SFO: Virgin America uses the International Concourse A, and the check in counters are located at Aisle 12 next to Northwest International check-in. Signs are pretty much all updated with Virgin America signage.

Check in: Check in counters are arranged into separate first and main cabin line. Web bag drop line goes with first class (so online check-in is encouraged), and the main cabin check-in is basically mostly kiosk, which is a bit different from conventional airline. It is a flat screen monitor that lies horizontal, and languages include English, a few Asian (Traditional & Simplified Chinese, Japanese, and Korean) and European languages (Spanish and French maybe). The kiosk is simple to use, despite the failure to read my credit card. BTW, I am their first kiosk check-in passenger (and one person beat me to the real check-in). It features the usual selection and you can pay for those exit rows on the kiosk as well. I try to change seats and that function works well. Many employees watched over me, as they were monitoring the system. There were few glitches, such as the credit card recognition system, as well as the screen states that you can check in two bags for free, but in reality, only one bag for free, and second bag will cost $10, and third bag and upward will cost $50 each. For the first day, there was many staffs around to assist passengers, and they all took initiatives to welcome you and to try their best to help you out with bags and they always said, “please feel free to ask one of us if you have any questions!” Trays of cupcakes are also available to all passengers and/or users of the airport. Good way to advertise!

Inaugural party: As you can imagine, Virgin America is famous for its party and this SFO inaugural party is no different. After passing security at Concourse A, I immediately noticed young men and women were each stationing on the beginning and end of the two sets of moving walkway, with a surf board up and wearing a tank top saying either the names of the new Virgin planes or SFO Welcomes Virgin America. Pointy red balloons decorated the whole terminal ceiling.

There is a large buffet next to gate A10, which features cheese and fruit, sandwiches, cupcakes and non-alcoholic drinks. It is very luxurious, but I had lunch at the Japanese restaurant, so I skipped the buffet. There are cheerleading girls performing various acts featuring the Virgin brand. Everything is as red as possible, and most employees were out celebrating the inaugural. They were all excited about this event.

The weather started off very cloudy but thankfully by noon, the bay was all cleared up and everyone was anxious for the simultaneous landing of both the LAX and JFK flights. As some of you know, NY had some weather problem that morning and flights were delayed left and right, but VX 1 got out not too bad, so the simultaneous landing took place at 1:20pm. Virgin’s A320 N621VA “Air Colbert” and N622VA “California Dreaming” landed from JFK and LAX respectively, and Sir Richard Branson and Fred Reid were both on the JFK flights, as expected. After each aircraft received their water salutes, the LAX flight was parked at gate A11(B) and JFK flight was parked at gate A12, and I would take Air Colbert back to JFK later. The special moment was that Sir Richard Branson and Fred Reid poked their heads out from the cockpit and Sir Branson waved the American flag, and Reid waved the California flag and that is a media moment. Then the JFK flight deplanes first, and obviously received the most attentions.

As you can tell from the pictures, red carpets were lined up from both gates leading to the center stage, and one of my favorites, SF Mayor Gavin Newsome was at gate A12 welcoming the JFK arrival guests. Then it was the usual speech time with Mayor Newsome welcomed Virgin to SFO and declared August 8th as the Virgin America Day and “Paint the Town Red” day, and various SFO spots would be showered in red lights this evening to celebrate the arrival of Virgin America. Then Fred Reid said a few words and then Sir Richard Branson, and the whole atmosphere was celebratory and fun.

Quick plane-spotting: NW 332 N857NW, QF 744 VH-OED GE Engines, JL 744 New JA8082, AF 744 F-GISD, BA 744 G-BNLA, KL 744 PH-BFB City of Bangkok, and Virgin 744 G-VROC…

[Carfield]

August 8, 2007
VX 34 SFO-JFK Lv1440 Arr2320 Airbus A320-200 N621VA “Air Colbert”
Boarding began slightly late at 2:20pm, due to the late arrival of the aircraft, the first day of operation, and the really long speech time. Virgin uses a boarding group system, and you will see Group A, B, C, D, E, and F on your boarding pass. Pre-board includes the usual wheel-chaired, handicapped and family with young children. Then followed by First class, and then group A, B, C, D, E, F… Headsets (a nice one too) were available at the gate, and a small red bag of candies were also handed out. Then many Virgin employees, including this great guy called Patrick, who remembered my name and even helped me to inquire about upgrade possibility, said welcome and hope to see us back. The flight was fairly full and with some amount of middle seats opened throughout the cabin.

The cabin with the mood lighting was great, and my impression was “wow” and a very modern, cyber, and stylish décor was used. The first class features eight plush white leather seats and a purple transparent separator was used to separate the first and main cabin rows, not the typical white walls. The purple separator introduced an exclusive F cabin environment, but yet has this visual aide to reflect on the wider cabin of these narrowbody Airbus planes. No curtain was used to separate F and Y cabin, as FAA requirements.

Main cabin all featured stylish black-leathered seats, and the legroom was not that impressive at 32”. The seats are very comfortable though and the lumbar worked well even at the end of the five hour flight, but the legroom was its weakest part. It is hard to expect a 36” cabin like Jetblue, but 33-34” will be nice. I definitely recommend paying $25 extra for the exit and bulkhead rows. I can’t even full opened my laptop when the person reclined his seat, as well as my knee cap touched the seat in front of me, which forced me to recline my seat as well. The recline was pretty decent, but that meant the person behind you suffered a bit more. Also on top of the touchscreen, removable remote armrest control was also used too, but that means the armrest will not go all the way up. So if you have a whole row of three seats to yourself, you cannot lift them up and lied down.

One other thing you noticed was that there was really not much galley and closet space, as compared to major airlines. There is no hanging closet, and the galley in F cabin was pretty small similar to Jetblue and with oven installed. But the aft galley was the same size as F cabin, instead of the conventional aft galley on most US and world airlines, where the galley occupies the whole back wall. There is definitely no oven there, and return caterings are not possible for transcontinental flights. The two aft bathrooms were separated by the bottled water bar, which was filled with bottled water – mini or a slightly larger size. Danon of course is the featured brand. I don’t know if I am explaining well here, but perhaps someone who was there can help me out.

However this design saved space for more seats, but with the bathroom line and small galley area, the F/As and passengers had to almost fight for spaces to stand and for F/As to work. But I guess LCCs need to maximize passengers’ space.

Door was closed at 3:07pm after some late paperwork, and we pushed back five minutes later. We took off from R/W1R at 3:32pm. Flying time was five hours and five minutes, with an initial cruising attitude of 29,000feet, and then up to 33,000feet and then at our final attitude of 35,000feet, and the routing was literally a straight line from SFO to JFK.

About first class service, I will report back tomorrow after my return flight on Virgin First class, but from what I saw, there was a meal service of some sort definitely.

For main cabin, you order beverage and food from the personal television, either complimentary or paid, and there was a food menu, which lead you to the beverage, meal, snack and snack order history menu. No individual snack items are available now, and the meals are limited to a fruit and cheese plate or a sandwich combo, which costs $7-8. Beverage menus feature the usual soft drinks, as well as alcoholic drinks. The price was much higher than anticipated. Beers are $5 each but Heineken was $6, and hard liquors and wines are $6 each.

In terms of entertainment, there are TV, 20 channels from DISH Network, which in my opinion operated worst than Direct TV and some channels were not available, Premium TV, which was short subject and costs mostly $1.99, Music Videos, Movies ($6-8 depend on titles and newness), and interestingly multi-lingual TVs, which include some of my favorite Hong Kong television programs (which were surprisingly available), as well as various Japanese, Korean, Indian, Spanish and French televisions. They are complimentary. I have not tested the game function or the chat function, but they are available, only the wifi is not there yet.

The service procedure was to serve some of the initial food and beverage orders individually first, and then beverage cart will swing by, and for the rest of the flight, all foods and drinks are available till preparation for landing. The F/As are quite happy to walk back and forth, but I feel bad for them. The current procedure also creates much traffic in the cabin, and my suggestion is perhaps in the future, to roll out the beverage and food cart immediately after takeoff, and then do the on demand beverage and food service, so there won’t be scenes where passengers and F/As were fighting for spaces in the aisles.

There are some glitches as expected, and it was cool that the F/A can individually reset a particular personal television at a particular seat… so don’t hesitate to call a F/A if your screen freezes, which happens, and they can reboost the individual televisions from their control panels. It was really high tech stuff.

Flight attendants are very cheerful and helpful, and the “people” factor on Virgin America certainly rated high, although I have to yet to encounter the NYC staff, which possibly was my most concerned, especially some of my fellow New Yorkers carried some attitudes with me even at customer service jobs. So it is hard to say much about it till maybe my flights in October, when the initial excitement died down and saw how Virgin can maintain its spirits.

[Carfield]

I ordered a fruit and cheese plate, which I thought was okay, but to be honest, Virgin really needs to work on enhancing the food selections. The cheese used are all packaged cheese from not so fancy companies, and yet they charge $7. I really expect hot meals to be available for purchase, especially on these long haul flights. The current two selections are insufficient at best, not to mention the lack of availability of other individual snack items. Around two hours prior to arrival, champagne (with cranberry juice) was offered to everyone, as well as a box of XOX Truffles made from SF. The flight ended in a high note, as we approached JFK. We landed on R/W 31R at 11:37pm, and everyone cheered after we touched down, and the flight ended in applauses. We were parked at gate A3 fourteen minutes later, as I spotted Cathay Pacific’s B-HOY World’s Asia City was the Vancouver and Hong Kong flight this evening. Bags came out within fifteen and twenty minutes, which were quite nice. It felt shorter because the walk to the domestic baggage claim was actually a bit longer.

In conclusion, Virgin America started in a high note with innovative personal entertainment system, service style, and great people. There are areas that bother me:
1. The Food selection – really limited and I sincerely hope hot meals could be provided in some ways, like cup noodles and even traditional microwave dinners, and even the normal salad and sandwich selections can be enhanced. Individual snack items like chips, cookies and nuts mix are expected, and should come out ASAP.
2. Tray Table – they use this plastic similar to Virgin’s Upper Class, and they are all white. They look nice, but aren’t they also prone to scratches and dirt, too…
3. Cleaning process – not good enough, as there was a IPOD headphone box filled with trash in my seat pocket…
4. Seat pitch – 32” is better than Air Tran, United, Northwest, US Airways, and many US airlines, but compared to Jetblue, its main competitors, 32” are really weak, and Virgin should consider an economy plus section down the road. The recline was really good, but it also meant that my knee was squeezed immediately. I can’t even have a laptop out, despite the availability of an electric outlet under each seats.

Well Virgin is in its first stage, and hopefully it can work out all these glitches eventually and I wish them more success. For the majors out there, be very worried because Virgin America actually brings in a different type of cultures and its entertainment system and food and beverage service really surpassed most of them, and the F/As, young and old, are all cheerful. However, sorry to be so honest, I still think Jetblue has a little bit more advantaged than Virgin in terms of better legroom, a decent entertainment system (DirectTV works better, but of course, Virgin has a more well rounded system and more selections, but to be honest, Jetblue’s Direct TV is more reliable and good enough for me), and “complimentary” beverage and snack service (which Jetblue is quite generous). For the same price and route, if I can’t secure an exit row seat on Virgin, I may choose to fly Jetblue just because of the legroom. Nevertheless, as a LCC, Virgin has already surpassed Air Tran, ATA, Fronter, and Spirit, in terms of service and staff friendliness and high tech gizmo that will attract the young crowd. The difficulty will be to maintain that high standard of service and staff morale in a long term fashion.

In terms of schedule reliability, we cannot say much till Virgin runs a few months of operations but from what they preach, they seem to run on a more reasonably planned schedule and less packed, and let see how that work out in the end. Virgin flew into two delay prone airports – SFO and JFK, so it is interesting to see how things will work out in the end.

Carfield

PS. I sort of expect a first flight certificate or a more Virgin America specific inaugural gift, like a Virgin America baggage tag or sticker. Why can’t airlines bring those fun airline specific memorabilia back? That is perhaps the most disappointed aspect of the whole inaugural experience. Am I asking too much?

[Carfield]

Follow up report on Virgin America First Class return on August 9, 2007:

Photo link:
http://share.shutterfly.com/action/w...8QbNHDNy5bqIF4

Hi folks,

As promised, here is my return report on Virgin America First Class. Indeed ironically, I am right now sitting on American Airlines’ flight 16, bird number N335AA, my return flight back to JFK. Of course, I am still not up in the air, as JFK continues to be plowed by storms. I am sitting next to R/W1R and 1L, but no plane-spotting because the F/As have asked everyone to lower the window blinds so they can showed the movie, Spider Man 3. To give them credits, they are passing out headsets for free. But the darkened cabin possibly won’t help much in enhancing the quality of pictures on these tattered Boeing 767-200ERs, who need a major touchup sooner or later. I am sitting in Business Class and even as of this moment, no one has bothered with more beverages, even though we have an hour (and god knows, how much longer) waiting here in the tarmac. Everyday from check-in to boarding, and to the flight, the difference between the latest newcomer Virgin America and a tired US major airline American Airline is dramatically different. In Virgin America, everyone tries to please you and go out of his or her way to make you feel comfortable. They are innovative and promising, and yet on American, from the moment you checked in, you are dealing with a tired and demoralized labor force and for those who thinks that there are too many airlines here, I will say, perhaps there are too many of them, but unfortunately, they are so demoralized that we need new bloods, and a new breed of airlines in order to retire the airlines, which no longer try to be innovative and worst so, to respect their exhausted and frustrated travelers. Enough babbling (sorry folks… when you are stuck in the ground and a dark cabin, you can’t really cheer up much!)

So how did Virgin America’s First class score? It definitely scores well and in terms of seats, I rate it above American’s AFS (American Flagship) Business Class, the so called new generation sliding business class seats (NGBC), United’s premium service business class, and not to mention Alaska’s, Delta’s, Northwest, US Airways’ and other major or minors domestic first class cabin. In terms of food, it is pretty innovative. There are no printed menus or fancy amenity kits, but for the price you paid, it is worthwhile. Of course, we need to remember that Virgin America is a low cost airline and its first class product has aspects of LCCs, but they are just trying to make a worthy first class cabin without overpricing them like most US major airlines. Should AA and UA be very concerned with the future of their premium cabins or transcontinental markets? I definitely think so! As of this point, the only saving grace for them are their frequent schedules (AA has a better advantage with their hourly flights from LA), their frequency flyer programs, and their corporate contracts.

However, Virgin America also has some issues that they need to deal with – reliability especially flying in and out of two major trouble spots in the nation as my flight tonight suffered a two hours ground delays at JFK, ironing out initial glitches with various ground and onboard facilities, and my main concern, how to maintain the high morale of the employees in the years to come and maintain that luster and not get tired, like Jetblue after expanding so much and the major US airlines, which seem to pass their glorious times except Continental perhaps. In another word, how to become the future “Southwest” of the US airline industry? Profitable and customer-friendly! First class can use some improvements too and I will address it at the end.

August 9, 2007
VX 234 JFK-SFO Lv1835 Arr2215 Airbus A320-200 N622VA “California Dreaming”

Check-in:
I arrived at JFK around 4:30pm, and all the Air Train and signage at JFK have already been updated. Virgin America this time is located next to Virgin Atlantic, and that will hopefully create less confusion. During the SFO inaugural, I have seen numerous passengers mistaken Virgin America as Virgin Atlantic… (I cannot imagine the problem at LAX, since VS is at T2 and VX is at T6.) The check in aisle number is 2 and there are two lines: First Class & Web Bag Drop, and Main Cabin & Kiosks. The counters are fully staffed and this time I decided to check in with a real person and no one barked at me and forced me to return to the kiosk. The agent was very friendly and asking where I was heading and all the friendly chats. Unfortunately, my hope of getting a “real” VX boarding pass has failed because only regular white stocks were printed out because the JFK system still does not accept VX’s own boarding pass stocks… should have stuck with the kiosk. I was pretty early, so things were pretty quiet at the check-in areas, where the staffs were still getting used to the computers, machines, and various procedures. The whole check-in took three minutes and I was directed towards the gate, which was B20 today. Then I headed down the general shopping and eating area downstairs, and got a bite from McDonald, as you never know when you will get dinner because the usual hour long evening rush. Then I checked the arrival screen and the flight was shown delayed to 6pm, and the new departure time for my flight was 6:55pm. I logged on line then and tried to track the flight, which was actually on time, but then as I walked out the entrance of terminal four of the departure level. (You can spot the plane at B20 all the way towards the east side/right side of the terminal). You can also see the landing activities at R/W13L and take off activity at R/W13R. The inbound plane indeed landed at 5:29pm, but the Sun County Boeing 737-800 at Gate B20 was running late due to the weather, and the poor VX plane had to wait thirty minutes for parking space. That is the problem that Virgin America will face and continue to face, and that will definitely affect their on-time records, and that reliability issue is too easy to look past it.

[Carfield]

This flight was pretty full, and there were numbers of standbys, as some employees were trying to get back to SFO after the inaugural flight from JFK. Boarding began at 6:46pm because the cleaning took a bit longer than expected (and yes they hired cleaning crew) and of course, the catering staffs were still getting used to galley setups. The staffs were apologetic and JFK staffs were working on the boarding screen, which was broken after I took that photo (I hope I did not jinx it), and only one of the boarding pass machines could work (despite two were setup, which slowed down the process. The paper work was taking longer than normal, which was very understandable, but hopefully VX would get the whole process down soon. For an airport like JFK, even being late for one minute could have serious consequence, and in our case, we were already twenty minutes late, and then door was not closed till 7:33pm. 47 minutes boarding time was not stellar, which we hit the heavy traffic time further… Well first class was 100% full and the white leather seat was well padded and comfortable. The first impression was great and the two purple transparent walls tried to create a secluded first class environment by circumventing the FAA rules regarding curtains and clear vision access to the whole cabin. On each seat, a red polyester blanket, as well as a pillow and a bottle of water, were there, and the F/A immediately took a pre-takeoff beverage order. Some passengers asked about coat closets, which were not available. I guess if VX is looking to attract a business crowd, a coat closet will be necessary especially winters are coming with the thick coats.

We finally pushed back at 7:40pm, and headed towards various holding points, before finally moving towards the long queue at 8:02pm. After exactly 18 aircraft, we took our turn at R/W13R at 8:44pm. I guess due to the lack of experiences, the pilots really underestimated the waiting time and I felt that the F/As should take a little more initiatives by passing out bottled water but once the F/As got used to the JFK routines, they could be a bit more active, but one thing that definitely need to be addressed is the personal television being in the armrest for first class folks, and maybe VX should allow first class passengers to pull out the armrest PTV for viewing during those long waiting times, especially when ATC had issued a definitely holding pattern, as well as weather issues, and since the pilots had to warn the F/As about the takeoff and maybe at that time, F class folks can store their PTVs for takeoff. That seems to be pretty manageable. Anyway, flying time was five hours and forty-four minutes this evening, and we climbed initially to 32,000feet, and then 34,000feet, and then 36,000feet.

The first class seat was wonderful, and the legroom was very generous at 55” (especially I flew back on AA J). I actually will recommend row one over row two, as there was no one reclining onto you, but there is no overhead storage at 1A and 1B due to storage of various emergency equipments. The message function was nice, as well as the availability to adjust the lumbar support, and the seats were well lighted. So the seats were definitely up to par, if not better, than the current American Airlines’ Business Class seats on the 767-200ERs (as well as the NGBC seats if you ask me), and United Airlines’ premium service business class seats (except exit rows of course…). Also want to apologize for the lack of pictures on a full recline position because my neighbor actually did not leave the seat even for one minute during the flight. She slept after the meal and all the way till landing. But trust me, it was good.

After takeoff, F/As asked for our names and how we want to be addressed, as well the first beverage service, and the entrée order. Our table was then individually setup with a paper mat (like Delta and no real linen), one wine glass and drinking glass (real glasses here), and a red napkin wrapped plastic utensils. Then beverages were served, and then the first course, where were a selection of appetizers served in a very stylish triangular plastic cups and you are more than welcome to have once each and the F/As did a second round. The selection this evening include cantaloupe wrapped in parma ham, shrimp cocktail, and a cherry tomato and mozzarella cheese tapas and for entrées, our choices were a Thai lemongrass chicken or a Shrimps with garlic and tomato sauce, accompanied by saffron rice, and green beans almondine. The entrée was served in real china plate (pre-plated, but not casserole dishes), and then there was a trio of dessert service and you can have one each and was served in the same triangular plastic cups. (For both appetizers and desserts, the F/As served the tapas using a white paper tray with eight of each items on the tray. You can pick and choose according to what you see. Our choices include a heavenly chocolate mousse with candied orange peel, a cream puff in chocolate sauce and a mini raspberry jelly cup. The food is pretty good for a low cost first class product, and it is way better than Delta, and better than AA’s J class breakfast and lunch, but not quite match up with AA’s dinner as well as UA meal services. But for a LCC, it is very creative, and I think a mixed nuts or crackers or pretzels to go with the first beverage service would be nice, and hot bread rolls were offered (a rosemary roll and a sourdough roll) with hot entrees. Full bottled wines were offered but no sparkling wines (which should be considered in the future). I also will like the option to buy snacks too, especially you feel a bit hungry towards the end of a six hours flight.

Entertainment system was the same as main cabin, except we don’t have the beverage and snack order options, and all the movies and premium television shows were available for free.

For the rest of the flight, the flight attendants were quite attentive and we were encouraged to use the call buttons at anytime during the flight. The main cabin F/As were also a bit less stressed on the return, as not too many people ordered beverages and meals towards the end of the flight.

Descent soon began at 11:06pm San Francisco local time, and we passed over San Jose and making a straight in approach towards R/W28R, and it was a beautiful night in the Bay area, and we touched down at 11:28pm and parked at gate A10 eleven minutes later.

For $400, it was a very good deal, and I felt Virgin America seems to strive for an affordable premium seat market and if it keeps its fare in this level $400-500, the product is really reasonable, and I have a feeling that it will force AA and UA to really re-examine their business class products and kept them in reasonable shapes. I also think the loading is pretty strong and Virgin may want to add one more row of F seats on the A320s in the future. Of course, there are areas to improve – lounge access especially to the Virgin Club House at JFK and SFO will be nice, even if we paid an additional fee (reasonable of course), and priority baggage handling is almost a must, but so far, the baggage situation was okay at JFK (have not tried them at SFO and LAX yet). The meals can be improved with a bit more substance on the entrée, and the beverage accompaniments.

Compared to AA Business Class and UA Business class on the current transcontinental flights, Virgin definitely scores well, if not slightly above them, especially in terms of the whole ground experiences (really great staffs), very personal F/As service and a good F/A: passenger ratio, excellent sleeper seats, and high tech entertainment system. I flew AA the next day, which was an okay flight, but the F/As were rushing through meals, did not do any beverage rounds or checks in passengers (they basically saw the J cabin as mostly upgrades, so they don’t really care), the really dated seats (yes AA seats has slight less legroom and recline), and a poor meal (sandwich is just not proper for a business class cabin and I hope Virgin should force AA to review the meals). Delta is just so out of league right now, and AA really needs to speed up the supposedly 762 improvement projects, and UA really needs to treat Virgin as a serious competitor. But for AA and UA’s first class on those three class planes, VX is not shooting towards that market, so they don’t need to worry and VX First class never claims to be at that level. Folks, please remember VX is still a LCC and the price it is charging is not bad at all… so be realistic! But VX remembers to be realistic with the fare levels too.

[Carfield]

The advantage of Virgin in general is the really high employee morale and excellent service, which can also easily wore out in long term. Another major problem is the on time and reliability issues – the turnaround time is just too long and you need to be realistic even if you need to pad your schedule further. DL actually pads its JFK to LAX flight up to seven hours in the winter. I know it is ridiculous, but JFK and SFO are not getting better and we should be thankful if it did not get worst. The fall is coming soon and the fog issues at SFO will haunt VX, and the terminal availability at JFK will also be tight, so be realistic especially in the beginning months, when VX works out teething problems. The 6:35pm JFK-SFO flight perhaps suffers long-term reliability issue and I don’t think it has yet to be able to takeoff on time yet since August 9. That will definitely be my number one concern for now. My second concern is its really complicated fare schemes right now and for a LCC, it is unacceptable, and for a LCC, the less fares you need to juggle with, the better it is… it is also a disappointment that VX has not reveal all its fare categories when you buy a ticket through its own website. Southwest shows you all the fares and I think that is the way to go especially a LCC, which claims to be different. Even Jetblue does not reveal all its fares, which is actually a major problem I have.

Summary of Virgin First Class:
- Priority Check in
- Priority Boarding
- Pre-takeoff Beverage and Bottled Water
- 55” of legroom with adjustable headrest, lumbar support, message functions, footrest, and recline
- Electronic controls
- Overhead light, as well as the additional adjustable snake arm light
- Complimentary alcohol and non-alcoholic beverages served in “real” glasses and cups – full bottled wines
- Full hot three course meal with warmed rolls on transcontinental flights
- Complimentary movies and premium televisions for first class passengers, in additional the wide range of multilingual televisions, regular televisions, music videos, games and chats

Feel free to ask more questions, and I will have trips on Virgin America in October and will do a follow-up then and see if there are improvements or continuous problems.
Carfield

[milehighj]

Thanks a lot for posting, Carfield!

It's about time for a premium US domestic carrier!

[9V-JKL]

Thanks for sharing Carfield! Looks like VX has raised the bar for domestic F
Would you know/estimate how much pitch is in the Y bulkhead/exit rows?

[IanDeYoung]

Great trip report Carfield!
Enjoyed reading.

[StarG]

Thanks for the Trip Report and pictures, Carfield.
Very nice looking domestic cabins.

[sqforever]

Great report Carfield! I can't wait to see them expand across the US so they can be regarded as a threat to the likes of AA, UA, and DL. They're definitely on my list to try!

[jjpb3]

Thanks for the well-written trip report, Carfield. I appreciate the details and pictures you provided.