Los Angeles — For my flight to Seattle, I jumped at the opportunity to try Virgin America for the first time.
I’ve spent plenty of time analyzing the new airline andwhat it means for the global Virgin brand, but had yet to have the chance to see it first hand.
With the limited route network of this new airline, it did mean I would have to connect in Los Angeles to get to Seattle, however the tech and plane aficionado in me wanted to get hands-on with the unique experience in the cabin of N526VA, a four month-old Airbus A319.
When boarding I was immediately struck by the purple and pink signature mood-lighting has found its way onto Virgin America’s fleet.
Yet, the real gem on this A319 lives in the headrest at every seat.
Each seat’s IFE hosts a 9″ Linux based touch screen user interface called Red that allows users to watch live TV, watch new-release movies on-demand, hop into a chat room or instant message another passenger with the QWERTY keyboard on each hand controller, play games (including Doom – which this blogger enjoyed greatly) and create a custom playlist of songs from 240 artists you’ve actually heard of. As the flight progressed, all these events were saved in a section called ‘my media’ which allowed me to flip between the TV station I last watched, the movie I had rented (a free TEDTalks seminar with Sir Richard Branson), and my playlist, which was getting quite long packed with The Who, Bruce Springsteen and U2.
This post was originally published to the internet between 2007 and 2012. Links, images, and embedded media from that era may no longer function as intended.
This post originally appeared at Flightglobal.com from 2007 to 2012.