new virgin airlines service

virgin service to san diego started last week and we really enjoyed our flight to san francisco. each seat comes equipped with a personal media center, which includes tv shows, videogames, movies, and cabin chat room and texting (coming soon). the cabin features dim pink mood lighting (similar to thai airways' planes) and seats with headrests that extend above the seat, a big plus for tall people with giant heads like me which roll back over the top of the seat while attempting to sleep. and you can book exit row seats online for a mere $15 extra. to get exit row on most other airlines, you need to either be an elite member, show up at the airport 2 hours before your flight and hope there's an exit seat, or on southwest, print your boarding pass exactly 24 hours before flight time.

if you're wondering what direct routes virgin might add from san diego, there don't appear to be any planned for the time being; from the comments in the link below:

Chicago in June, Boston in July, Miami in October/November. That's it for 2008.

one plus is the planned hookup with other virgin carriers, so you could fly to sf and then jump on a flight to london on virgin atlantic. but with direct flights to london coming this june on zoom airlines, there's no need for that. other new routes may include an lax to cabo flight. maybe some slots will open up at lindbergh and we'll see some additional cities down the road. until then, at least you've got a new excuse to go to san francisco for $40 each way before taxes.

as the above article notes, the airline is hiring 1000 workers in their expansion. our friend bruce works for them part time at lindbergh and says it's a lot of fun.