I'm on my way home from San Francisco. In the air right now. Somewhere over Nevada. The interactive Google map tells me so. I can hit a button at any point to see where we are, which way we're pointing, how high we are, what speed we're going, how much farther it is to our destination and the temperature outside (which, by the way, is freakin' cold ... minus 49 Fahrenheit right now, to be exact.)
Why was I in San Francisco you might ask? I was offered a flight on Virgin America to either Los Angeles or San Francisco via a start-up called Klout. Virgin just started offering non-stop flights between Toronto, LA and San Fran and they wanted to do a promotion involving social media. Virgin offered a flight via Klout to some people that fell into a certain category - who Klout consider to be 'influencers' (a term I am not comfortable with - and don't think I am. I just tweet a lot, have fun engaging online, help out when I can and let people know what my experiences are.) I will not ever promote a company, event, etc that I don't believe in or enjoy myself. If companies want to give me free stuff because I talk about them, I'm cool with that. I was talking about them already anyway! Klout only asks that we disclose that I received a 'sample' and that I am "welcome to tell the world I love the product, I hate the product or say nothing at all."
So, what do I think of my Virgin Airline experience? I'm having a great time. (That could be because I'm on my own - just 'me' time. Actually I wish I'd brought my daughter. She would have had a blast.) Some cool things about Virgin:
Purple onboard lighting. (If everyone would close their windows, I could get a great pic. Don't think that's gonna happen, so this pic will have to do.)
Touch screen at every seat. This allows me to watch tv, listen to music, see the map and do other things including seat-to-seat chat (how cool is that?!) and in-seat ordering, which I can charge to my credit card by swiping it myself right under the screen. Coolio. And check out some of the stuff you can order.
Even the safety video was fun (at least on the flight from Toronto to San Francisco. Not sure what happened on this flight. One crew member narrated the safety points while another - non-smily - member demonstrated. Seriously, he looked very unhappy. I haven't seen him smile yet.) They even let you know to be gentle with your touch screen in a fun way. :)
The only negative thing on the first flight was completely out of Virgin's control. It was small. It was loud. It was bouncy. It was restless. It wanted to touch everything. It was sometimes sticky. Here it is...
But, this is what the crew did for me :)
They also made sure I had a headset. They crew on the flight from Toronto to San Francisco was awesome. They were happy and made it a very positive experience. They were what I expected from Virgin. This crew from San Fran to Toronto has, um, a different vibe. Not sure what's up.
They name their planes. Not sure which one I'm flying, but I saw these other ones on the runway.
And, oh ya! Inflight wifi via gogo. Which is why I can post this right now. And there's a power supply between each seat. (Didn't realize that on the way there... Oops.)
And how awesome would it be to fly Virgin Australia and be able to lay down and sleep? Tres cool!
So, that's my Virgin experience so far. I'm definitely liking and would fly it again.
And now, the end of this post, I'm over Wyoming :)
Sunday 1 August 2010
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