Impressed at 30,000ft

February 22nd, 2008

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Right now I find myself aboard Flight 763 to Las Vegas, and the only word I can muster at this point (other than those that I’m typing, of course) is: amazing. The cabin of the plane looks like nothing short of a classy nightclub, backlit with blacklights and soothing lavender neon. The divider between first class and coach isn’t a trendy curtain that the flight attendants censoriously shut, but a transparent purple plexiglass enclosure that seems to just be some sort of soon-to-be fishtank they’d fill if only the FAA would let them bring liquids onboard.

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Now I consider myself a person of technology, a person in the loop on what’s going on and what’s to come, at least technologically. But here and now I can honestly say that I’m impressed, which is no small feat in terms of gadgets and gizmos. I’ve been on Jet Blue, I’ve traveled on a wide array of flights both international and domestic, but not like this.

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This is my first Virgin America flight, flying coach from San Francisco to Las Vegas. In front of me is what at first glance resembles your typical monitor, which seems to be posing a simple question: what do you want to do? But my choices are no longer limited to several tv channels (which was no small achievement back in the day) – my choices are: Watch, Listen, Play, Talk, Read, Eat, Shop, and Kids Play (see the photo on the right). What’s different here is the fact that the monitor before me is touch-screen, letting me interact with my newfound choices in the most intuitive and simplistic of ways. For those that long for a (dated) QWERTY experience, that too is possible by sneaking a peak at the left armrest, which reveals a fully retractable remote control, keyboard, and gamepad (at left).

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In the first draft of this post, I went into great detail about what the flight offers. All that has now been deleted. I realized that I will never be able to explain it as well as you can see it for yourself, on the Virgin Atlantic website. I HIGHLY recommend you check it out. Here are a few of my favorite finds while aboard:
  • The ability to instant message not only seat to seat, but also in chat rooms, either with the entire flight, a select group of passengers, or specific to a TV channel (in split window with the channel itself). Unreal. So cool.
  • The ability to make playlists from the offered music catalog – wow. I guess it helps when you own your own large record company.
  • Electrical outlets at every seat: simple, necessary, well done.
  • The food is ordered from the Eat menu on your screen – choose from drinks, snacks, or entire meals, all with one swipe of your credit card along the top of the screen. The flight attendant comes right over and serves you your order.

I found it especially interesting that the options for email checking, shopping, reading (of news), and instant messaging were all already built into the system, just waiting to be enabled (although it was quite sad to see those options, but to not be able to use them). How I long for the days of in-cabin wireless internet. The future of air travel is a bright one.

What can I really say except that the entire flight was, well, an experience. That, and I paid full price for my ticket: a whopping $44.

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my website is a collection of my work and writing since 2004, so please don't be surprised if things seem a little outdated, particularly in the technology section. That said, the concepts behind most posts should be interesting given all that's happened since they were written so enjoy!