Virgin America unrolls fresh spring food selections

by Grant Martin on

If you’re sick of the same old chicken or beef + wine or sugar water for your in flight meal, you’re not alone. Many people in the green revolution are moving towards healthier and fitter food selections, and the same old peanuts, pretzels and diet coke aren’t cutting it.

To find any creative meal content, however, you’re going to have to step away from the legacy carriers. Leading the effort, Virgin America, recently redesigned their spring in-flight menu to include options for the health conscious travelers.

Those traveling in Coach will now be able to select fruit and cheese, spring spinach salads, hummus and pita chips, wild berry parfait and mandarin chicken hand rolls among a host of other delectable options.

Guests in First get more mouth water options, including maple roasted chicken, barbecue lamb cutlets and braised beef with peas, feta and nuts. Yum. Take a look at the first class options in the gallery below, and hope that the other carriers tune in and kick up their food offerings as well.

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Virgin America jumps on the charge for a checked bag bandwagon

by Jamie Rhein on

Virgin America is joining the lets get more money from somewhere routine and is beginning to charge for the first checked bag. Unlike other airlines that charge more for the second checked bag and even more for the third, Virgin America is only going to charge $15 per bag up to ten bags. Ten bags!!! Wow. That’s for one person.

Listen folks. If any of you are thinking of moving, I’d move to where Virgin America flies and head there. With an 70 pound weight limit per bag that’s 700 pounds of goods for just $150. Of course, thinking about what 10 bags of 70 pounds each would look like in the check-in line is a bit mind boggling. Not to mention getting it all to and from the airport. (Think what a couple could move with for just $300.)

Put into effect yesterday, this baggage fee applies to flights booked on or after May 5. Although Virgin America is adding a charge for the first checked bag, it’s lowering the cost of changing or canceling reservations online from $75 to $50.

These fees only apply to those flying in the main cabin with non-refundable tickets. First-Class passengers can bring two checked bags for no extra charge and those with fully refundable tickets can bring one checked bag. [See Virgin America’s press release outlining the changes.

Fare alert – Virgin America $38 flights to fun destinations

by Scott Carmichael on

Bored this week? Virgin America has some nice low fares loaded right now for travel to and from San Francisco, San Diego, Seattle, Los Angeles or Las Vegas.

At just $38 each way, you can get yourself a round trip ticket for just $97, all taxes and fees included. The prices only seem to be valid for travel in the coming week, so don’t expect $100 tickets during the summer months.

Normally, good fare deals usually involve trips from bad airports to places nobody wants to go, but a day trip from San Francisco to Seattle would probably make for a fantastic way to spend the day.

That’s right – these fares are also valid for same day returns. You could leave SFO at 7:15am and depart San Diego at 8:35, giving you an entire day to enjoy the city. A similar trip can be made from San Francisco to Seattle, leaving the airport at 9:55am and departing Seattle at 8:55pm, giving you plenty of time to visit Pike Place Market and take a ride up the Space Needle.

You’ll find the deals at the Virgin America web site, and don’t forget to bring your laptop or smartphone, because all these flights are currently served by Virgin America planes with WiFi service on board ($9.95 per flight).

As with most deals like this, the longer you wait, the fewer seats will be available at these low prices, so don’t procrastinate too long!

Boston reaps the rewards of airline competition

by Grant Martin on

It’s funny. Airlines blame last year’s industry implosions on consumers’ non-stop demands for low fares. Ask any analyst and they’ll say “Transcontinental fares are as low this year as they are were in 1986! Where’s the inflation! The Humanity! The Humanity!”

We can’t be completely to blame though. Three out of four times, a consumer like myself needs to buy a ticket, logs on to Kayak, finds the cheapest fare and buys a ticket. If the bar is twenty dollars higher all around? The cheapest fare still gets purchased and I buy one less fitted oxford at Hollister.

Instead, I think much of the blame lies in aggressive competition. With their fun oil hedge, Southwest often sets the market price by opening service to a city, offering outrageous deals and forcing the competition to match or undercut those fares. Often times, the competition launches their own promotions to keep loyal passengers flying on their product.

Boston is the picture perfect example. Last month, Virgin America started service to Beantown, saturating the transcontinental market and directly competing with American Airlines. Soon thereafter, Southwest announced that they would be setting up camp in the Autumn. To compete with Virgin America? Perhaps.

In kind, American Airlines has now launched its own campaign, offering transcontinental passengers triple the miles on any flight. This means that after only two round trips, passengers can earn free domestic award travel on the airline. That’s a pretty outstanding deal and direct competition to both carriers.

Will this sway the fickle traveler back to American Airlines when Virgin America offers mood lighting and hipsterdome while Southwest provides zaniness and a robust route network? Maybe for the business traveler, but my guess is that the casual traveler will still go with the younger, cooler airlines.

Virgin America’s next destination: Orange County

by Grant Martin on

Now that the dust has settled from Virgin America’s Boston route launch, it’s time to move onto the next destination: Orange County. John Wayne Airport, nestled in the Southern Los Angeles suburbs plans to receive service some time this spring.

But why Orange County? The airline already offers service to LA, a mere few miles to the north and plenty of Midwestern and Southern cities would love to entertain the airline. Well, it’s got a lot to do with strategy. Abby Lunardini, spokeswoman from Virgin America puts it as such:

“As the only airline headquartered in Cali, this is an enormously important travel market for us – and the demand is certainly there even in the current economy. The Bay Area and Orange County are two of the nation’s leading innovation-based economies and are more insulated in the current economic climate. We also know that Orange County travelers are a perfect fit for our high-tech amenities and upscale service — like in-flight WiFi and touch-screen personal entertainment.”

The route is also a natural extension of our LAX-SFO routes. We’ve got really great schedules (especially for business travelers) flying into SNA.”

There you have it. We cavemen in the Midwest just don’t fit into the Virgin America model. Kidding aside, Virgin America plans to kick off the first flight in late April. As usual, we’ll be there to give you the lowdown.