Virgin America launch

[El Diablo]

KBZ,

I have been a loyal JetBlue customer for the last few years. Have an NYC trip in September on JetBlue. After that, I'm looking forward to giving Virgin America a try. Sounds like JetBlue+ from the review.

They have SF->LA/NYC/LV/DC, a pretty nice list of cities for me.

[Kneel B4 Zod]

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Sounds like JetBlue+ from the review.

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agree. I just wonder if they can sustain themselves that way, as a reasonably priced, innovative airline with cool services.

I mean, are the traditional airlines (American, United, etc) run so much poorly that they can't compete with Jetblue and Virgin? or is it that the business models of the newcomers are unsustainable?

I don't know anything about this industry (except as a semi-regular flier), but Jetblue just seems better all over than other airlines. Direct TV, comfy seats, happy employees (?), all with reasonable and sometimes the best prices. ...if there is a JetBlue route between Boston and City X, I am taking JetBlue almost always. I just wonder how that can be in such a mature industry.

I'm glancing at their annual report, and they have negative income for the past 2 years. I didn't dig in, though, so I dont know whats really going on.

[El Diablo]

KBZ,

A big part of it is hub-and-spoke system vs point-to-point. There are certain things that can work with limited service that don't scale to larger operations.

[WhoIam]

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playing poker on the laptop for a few hours would be a pretty great way to kill time.

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The inevitable "are you playing for real money?!" conversations would almost make me not want to do this.

[kkcountry]

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playing poker on the laptop for a few hours would be a pretty great way to kill time.

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The inevitable "are you playing for real money?!" conversations would almost make me not want to do this.

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do people who fly often not have these?

[SmileyEH]

Best flight I ever took was Boston to London on Virgin Atlantic. $240 one way with something like 500 tv episodes, 50 movies, great seats and attendants. Cool development.

[M2d]

the big difference between the carriers like jet blue and virgin and the bigger, more established ones like united and american (besides the number of stations flown to and number of flights/routes flown) is the amount of work done by the airline versus amount contracted out. whereas we (united, and I know we suck big time in many areas) do all of our repair work, maintenance, ramp service (baggage, towing, etc on the runway at the airport) all of virgin's in house work is above the wing (customer service, flight crews). all of their other work is subbed out. this is fine and even ideal as long as you have no mechanical problems, weather problems or other unexpected issues (as evidenced by jet blue's fubar situation this year). also, if there's labor problems in other airlines, you may be affected (if IAM for northwest strikes, for example, and you use northwest baggage handlers or ramp service, you're sol).

fwiw, i prefer to fly jet blue if i have to pay for my own flight, but our standby prices, automatic listing on the upgrade lists, and numerous routs make it rare that I fly another carrier these days.

[kyleb]

Ohhh man, this looks [censored] awesome.

[Paul B.]

Emergency exit row seats cost an add'l $25. This is actually pretty neat.

[Chrisman886]

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7) Games. Including Doom.

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/books flight