About Travel Industry

BNET Travel provides daily industry trends and news coverage with insights for managers and executives into all aspects of the travel and tourism industry. In addition to detailed airline and hotel company profiles, we bring you industry analysis on new travel and carrier routes, bankruptcies, mergers, tourism figures, investments and a host of other important business issues.

Journeying on Virgin America

By Barbara E. Hernandez | Jul 29, 2009

If you all remember my last posting, I was less than happy with the possibility of Virgin America ridding itself of its redeye flight meal in first class. (Some said the goal of the redeye is to gain a much shuteye as possible — am I the only one who can’t sleep on a moving vehicle?)

On Flight 25 from John F. Kennedy International Airport to San Francisco, we spent about 40 minutes taxiing around two runways (”We’re No. 45 in line!” “OK, now we’re No. 30!” “Apparently, we’re going back to our original runway and we should be No. 6 there.”) Still, it was probably one of the more entertaining flight crews I’ve had (”Are you sure you don’t want more wine? I have six more bottles to get rid of!”) I also liked the dry ice fog and purple lighting, which gave it a very disco feel. The meal was OK, it was comfortable and pleasant. However, the newness for Virgin America is showing — the delays, still no in-flight magazine, a kind of playing-it-by-ear first-class service — so I naturally wonder if they will be able to iron out its kinks in the next year.

Photo courtesy of Virgin America

Bay Area resident and award-winning business journalist Barbara E. Hernandez has covered tourism, real estate and personal finance. Her clients include the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle and Washington Post.

BNET User Analysis

Web Buzz:
  • Cupcakes, Kanye - oh, and clothes!

    Financial Times - 269 days 13 hours 28 minutes ago

    The beginning I am on the fashion express - aka the Virgin Atlantic red-eye flight from JFK to Heathrow. After a week of polished shows in New York, we're on our way

  • Cheap Ways to Green Your Next Move

    New York Times - 305 days 23 hours 20 minutes ago

    Emily Hager's piece on green moves this morning points up an emerging trend: companies that use plastic crates or other reuseable containers to move household objects. But even if you can't find one in your area, there are still plenty of ways you can cut down on cardboard and paper during your move. I tried to make a move in 2006 as green as...

  • Chat With CrunchGear at 35K Feet

    Tech Crunch - 247 days 17 hours 43 minutes ago

    Come chat with me on Ustream on my Virgin America flight and watch people walk by! I'll be turning on my camera every hour or so and I'll be chatting live from 35,000 feet. I'll also be IMing with Virgin America's IFE engineer James Weatherson around 6PM PT today and I'll post a transcript. He's in charge of the Red entertainment system...

  • Bleary Eyed Investors

    AVC - 68 days 6 hours 30 minutes ago

    Image by fredwilson via Flickr I'm in a particular stretch of sleep deprivation this week. From Tuesday through the end of today, I will do five board meetings in three cities, do two cross country flights including one redeye. I

  • PNN.com Launches "Ask the Bloggess"

    Media Bistro - 230 days 20 hours 29 minutes ago

    The Personal News Network, or PNN.com, has just launched "Ask The Bloggess," a spoof of traditional advice columns, authored by Houston-based blogger Jennifer Lawson. Lawson is setting a lofty goal for "Ask the Bloggess:" "I am so excited about working with PNN to fix America. Then if we still have time we'll move on to Canada, which my mother...

 

BNET TalkbackShare your ideas and expertise on this topic

Please add your comment:

  1. You are currently: a Guest |
  2.  

Basic HTML tags that work in comments are: bold (<b></b>), italic (<i></i>), underline (<u></u>), and hyperlink (<a href></a)

advertisement
advertisement
  • Click Here
  • Click Here
  • Click Here
advertisement
Click Here