Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Virgin America nitpicks

Nonfunctional Gogo Inflight Wifi: -10
The holy grail of passenger perks, ended up being a holy carrot on a stick. Worse than nonfunctional, the HTTP redirector simply takes you to 127.0.0.1 while advertising that "you are now connected to the Internet." I've never had it work for me on a single flight. Technically, they do offer wifi, but it only connects you to yourself. FAIL!

Chris Cornell soundtrack: -1
Virgin's techno-savvy demographic overlaps significantly with Twitter's. One of Twitters coolest celebrity (ex-)users had some infamously choice words to describe Cornell's latest offering. Does anyone disagree with that review, or not think of it when hearing the album?

No Web Check-in For Hotel Kiosk Users: -5
My hotel guest computer system was so thoroughly locked down, the Virgin America web site check-in process simply wouldn't work. The web site mostly worked and I could even log in and print my itinerary. But apparently, no Javascript + no Flash = no check-in or pre-printed boarding passes for you! Grosvenor Suites shares half the blame for this, though. IE 5.5 on a 486 with everything locked, does that even count as Internet access?

In-flight "Entertainment": +/- 0
It's like Skynet's retarded cousin. So much potential, utterly wasted and occasionally embarrassing.
Movies on demand: decent selection, overpriced as hell. Par for course.
Chat & TV Chat: very cool, but nobody uses it. /sadpanda
Games: Doom was pretty neat 15 years ago. It's forgivable if it's just there for geek cred, but it looks like the feature offering.
TV: I got to watch WSOP, good enough.
"Best of the Web": More like the best of the web from 6+ months ago. Web content rots quickly.

Pre-boarding Trivia Contest T-shirt giveaway: +5
Kudos for trying.

Airfare: +100
San Diego to San Francisco (and back!) for $120. Ninety minutes, each way. You're doing something right, at least...keep it up!

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