Virgin America’s Boston launch is today!

by Grant Martin on

Boston‘s day has finally come. At 2:30 this afternoon, the inaugural San Francisco – Boston flight lands, kicking off service from the carrier out of Beantown.

As part of the launch effort, the airline recently launched the Revolution Takes Flight website, where fans can nominate a non profit organization to which Virgin will soon donate a healthy $25,000.

Voting and selection for the winning organization culminate tomorrow evening, at which point Sir Richard Branson is going award the winners at the Liberty Hotel.

Gadling bloggers Grant Martin and Justin Glow will be tweeting onsite and causing the normal ruckus, so make sure to subscribe to our feed to catch any live updates/muses/throwdowns. But keep in mind: Boston is known for its potential to bring out the worst in travel bloggers.

You’ve been warned.

Onboard V Australia’s Boeing 777

by Grant Martin on

This past Friday, Gadling got a special invitation to tour V Australia‘s new Boeing 777 jumbo jet, the aircraft that will soon fly routes between California and Australia on the world’s newest airline.
We’ll get to into all of the hobknobbery of the event in a forthcoming post, but for now, lets take a look through the aircraft.

Each Boeing 777-300 has three classes of service: Business, Premium Economy and Economy.

Like most other transpacific products, economy is fairly cramped with 3 x 3 x 3 seating (32″ of leg room and 6″ seat pitch,) cloth seats and rows upon rows of cattle. Sections are fairly compartmentalized among rows 20-25, 26-38 and 40-52, with each cabin separated by lavs and galleys respectively, so you can bet that the smaller sub-cabin is going to be quieter.

Exit rows have plenty of space, and if you’re going to pitch for a set, I would recommend row 26, because row 20 has bassinets and row 39 has a galley nearby.

Thankfully, each seat has an LCD running the Panasonic RED system with an additional USB port, so you can stay entertained with movies, games and music or charge your iPod. Bulkhead seats have video screens in the armrests. Contrary to other reports, however, there is no in-seat power. Alternatively, a flight attendant that we spoke with said that there is AC power in the rear galley, so you can always wander back and plug in.

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Premium Economy is much more posh, with leather seats in a 2 x 4 x 2 configuration, so if you and a mate want some privacy you can book a window pair. LCD screens are a bit larger, seat pitch (9″) is more generous and leg room (38″) is more available, so your overall experience should be an order of magnitude better. There are only 5 rows of Premium Economy for a total of 30 seats, and each row is equipped with A/C power.

Finally, Business class is sectioned into two compartments with row 5 separated from rows 1-4 by the forward bar. The fully flat seats are in a standard 2 x 3 x 2 configuration and offer small privacy screens that you can raise between each. Given that each seat can recline fully, there is an astounding 77″ of leg room for each person, which means that you can basically play a small game of flag football with the space you have. Additionally, the front cabin offers bed turn down service, pajamas and the ability to eat your meals whenever you want, affording those who want to sleep or be left alone the flexibility to still have a hot meal.

Naturally, those up for a chat in Business class can also slip back to the front bar for a free beverage. Above the front bar there is a raised motif where one can look up at a (simulated) northern cross constellation — apparently the brass wanted a window up to the sky, but Boeing couldn’t fit that into the design.

Throughout the entire cabin, Virgin’s trademark “mood lighting” is prevalent, and even if you are off put by the pink and green seats, the purple and blue overhead lights can be remarkably calming. In some areas, a simulated starscape pattern also broods from the ceiling (pictured).

Overall, the best part about the aircraft is the clean, crisp aesthetic. Straight from the factory floor, this 777-300 has a solid, comfortable feel about it, and we’re sure that any transoceanic trip in this bird that’s in Premium Economy or Business will be outstanding. Coach might be comparable to the competition, but where V Australia could really excel is in the service. We’ll see how that performs in March.

Richard Branson christens the new V Australia 777 in LAX

by Grant Martin on

V Australia‘s new Boeing 777 aircraft arrived in Los Angeles on its way down to Sydney yesterday. Onboard were Richard Branson, the mayor of Los Angeles and a few other dignitaries, and when the aircraft rolled onto the Imperial Highway tarmac they naturally had to pop a bottle of Champagne.

So after the creature came to a halt in front of the eager crowd, a red carpet was unrolled on the wing and out popped Branson and a few hotties. Take a look at how it unfolded below, and stay tuned for official and unoffical reports from the aircraft early next week.

Tune in for the V Australia 777 Launch

by Grant Martin on

The world’s newest Transpacific carrier takes delivery of their first Boeing 777 aircraft this week, as executives from V Australia and Virgin converge in Los Angeles for the ceremony. Tomorrow afternoon, Richard Branson and top brass will pick up the aircraft in Washington and shuttle it down to LAX, where a fanfare of media pawns, cocktails and schmoozing will welcome the group.

On arrival, we’re welcome to browse through the aircraft, drinking in the succulent Business Class seats, crawling through the lavs and measuring seat heights, widths and pitches. Yours truly and the Cranky Flier will be there, and unless the latter gets us kicked out of another Virgin event we should be tweeting through the evening (EST) and sending updates.

What do we expect to see? Well, a few pictures of economy and economy plus have already been leaked to the internets, but what we’re really looking for is leg room, video screens (the service is purported to use the same RED system that Virgin America uses,) business class amenities and general ambiance of the aircraft.

Anything else you want to see? Shoot us a comment or a tweet and we’ll try to collect some good content.

Newest airline fee racket – oxygen!

by Scott Carmichael on

Not content with charging you for water and checked bags, some airlines have discovered the lucrative business of charging for oxygen.

Not to worry, most passengers won’t run out of oxygen mid-flight when they don’t pay, the fees are being charged for those passengers that require oxygen for medical reasons.

One passenger had already booked $3,500 in tickets with Emirates when the airline notified her that she’d have to pay an additional $4,000 for a single oxygen canister for her husband who suffers from idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.

Once she created some bad PR for the airline, they gave in, and offered to provide the oxygen for a “mere” $200, but by then she had already rebooked on a different airline.

All is not lost though, several airlines, including British Airways, Virgin and Cathay Pacific provide free oxygen canisters to any passengers that require it for medical reasons. Emirates recently joined that lineup when they announced they too would cease charging for air.

That still leaves plenty of other airlines who feel they can get away with charging between $75 and $350 for medical oxygen. In addition to these unfair charges, most airlines also ban passengers from carrying their own oxygen supplies, citing safety concerns.

One UK charity has already spent just under $70,000 in grants to provide its members with oxygen for their vacation flights.