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!
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.
Now that the dust has settled from Virgin America’s Bostonroute 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.
Virgin America kicked off their service to Boston with a bang last week, in an evening filled with excitement, celebrities and as usual, more than a few delicious beverages.
Gadling bloggers were on hand to capture the event that started at Logan Airport around 3PM. Naturally, Sir Richard Branson made the last minute decision to come down from the jetbridge in drag, after which a brief ceremony introduced us to the gate area, some foxy New England Patriots cheerleaders and a mishmash of Virgin crew and media.
Afterwards, the entire crew migrated over to the Liberty Hotel in Downtown Boston, where our old friend Mark from Jaunted was already setting up camp, then the whole lot of us headed down to the atrium for more festivities.
When any Virgin company throws a party, it’s usually in your best interest to show up. Whether this is a Virgin American inaugural flight with Victoria’s Secret models, a Virgin Galactic tour in the Mojave Desert or plain old marketing schlep, you’re almost always guaranteed to meet a few friendly faces, have a few drinks and learn something interesting about the Virgin brand.
Last week’s introduction to V Australia‘s 777 in Los Angeles was no different. Members from all branches of the media were on hand to witness the aircraft’s arrival from the factory in Washington, and to keep us entertained at the Flight Path Museum (just off the LAX tarmac,) organizers had a DJ, snacks, all sorts of literature and even a faction of the USC marching band and cheerleaders (?!) on hand to play a few tunes.
Most interesting, however, were the people. As usual, our old friend The Cranky Flier was on hand to deliver the down and dirty on all of the recent airline gossip (“OMG OMG did you hear about the Virgin America numbers??”), Juliana from Jaunted was armed with her Twitter entourage and suits from Expedia, Hilton and other travel brands were on site. On the flight’s arrival, Richard Branson also brought a few celebrities, including Australian celebrities, Brett Godfrey, the CEO of V Australia and other fancy headliners. Cranky also swears that he saw Chase from House MD, but I think that was just the Wild Turkey talking. %Gallery-44370%Once the tour of the aircraft started, I found myself walking towards the airplane with Richard Branson and Godfrey, the former of whom barged up the steps towards the door while the latter ushered me up. And as I passed the first class cabin and rounded into the aircraft bar, I suddenly found myself standing in the compartment alone with Branson.
I asked him if we could jump on the beds. In my defense, the invitation that I got from V Australia specifically said that we could, but I doubt that he knew that. Branson looked at me like I was some sort of squirrel and replied “Sure… In a minute,” and promptly opened up a bottle of Champagne.
Then the mayor of LA, Antonio Villaraigosa, showed up and ruined all of the fun, sucking down a glass of Champagne and spouting off some senseless marketing drivel. With him came the rest of the media, including questions like “Will trips to Australia be non-stop?” (Answer from Branson: Well, it’s over the ocean, so I should hope so.) so I headed to the back of the aircraft to meet some more people and take some pictures.
Finding myself in the cockpit, I ran into Ken Pascoe, one of the pilots of the aircraft who was currently sitting in the right seat. After a couple of pictures and some plans to visit the 777 simulator in Sydney, we took this video:
Overall, everyone seems really excited about the new service that’s coming up. Once the 777 reaches Australia, the airline is going to spend a few weeks acclimating, training and preparing their crew, then first flight is later this month. Stay tuned for a review of the inflight service.