Virgin America, a review written during flight. I'd live-blog it, but I don't live-blog, and there's no internet.

Upon entering the plane, I'm struck by the soft violet lights. It's got this very new, very futuristic feeling. They're piping in music which I can only describe as soft techno. It's slightly upbeat and engaging without being invasive.

Seats are all leather and recline nicely. Foot room isn't the best, but doesn't seem too far out of line from other airlines. The flashing of the seats is hard plastic and seems comparable to the covering of a MacBook. It's currently nice and white, but I wonder if it will hold up over time. Even so, the atmosphere is comforting. The brochure area in the seats are hard plastic pockets (with the standard elastic netting). I won't say they spared no expense, but for a coach class fare, this is among the best I've had the pleasure of experiencing.

The amenities include power and USB, so I'm not running off my laptop battery at the moment, instead getting the full functioning POWER of the plug. There's one for every seat, so I don't even need to share. Compare that to my Amtrak trip back in November, where I think there were two plugs in total for the lounge car, which basically had to serve everyone in coach class. It doesn't have internet, though, which is a bit of a shame. I'd like to see an airline provide wi-fi on all flights so people can get connected while they're travelling. For longer flights, it'd be awesome. I could even get work done.

Most impressive are the entertainment options, which are provided by the Red Interactive Environment. This is varied and comprehensive, if a bit rough around the edges. It is listed as beta, so that's to be expected. There's a selection of movies for sale, music to listen to, games to play, and various TV channels to watch. That much is expected, however there's also a rather interesting chat function which allows seat-to-seat, open chat-rooms, and chat rooms based on TV channel viewing.

Red runs on Linux, which seems neat and geeky. Given that the environment isn't the most responsive, it might not be the best choice, but at the moment I'm going to chalk that up to the beta nature rather than the underlying architecture.

The games reflect the environment, though, with a selection of clones of extremely old (i.e. Atari era) games, free standbys (like mahjong), flash variants, and (somewhat surprisingly) Doom.

My personal favored feature is the map, which runs on the increasingly ubiquitous Google Maps. Currently it shows that we are about 150 miles from Seattle, passing over Portland at a speed of 525 MPH. We're flying at 38000 feet and it's a balmy -67 farenheit. Well, I wouldn't want to be outside, but it is nicely sunny up here.

For services, they provide the standard drink fare, but snacks of any sort require a small fee. There's also a selection of alcoholic drinks and meals. Nothing there is spectacular, but the interactive environment has the food ordering system built in, along with credit card readers. Want something, you just order it to add to a shopping cart and then just scan to pay. Cash is not accepted, but it all seems very straightforward and easy to use.

The presentation for the airline really shines. The standard introduction was provided by a well-done and entertaining animated movie. It's not quite as good as the best attendant presentations I've had while flying Southwest, but it's still fresh. I hope they update it on occasion to make sure it doesn't get stale.

Check-in was a quick and easy endeavor, and I believe I got the nicest boarding pass ever done. The information on it is clear and it had a very bright red graphic, as if to declare 'Here is a person who is flying Virgin America, today. He is both hip and intelligent for making such a choice."

With that said, it's not quite got the entrenched position of other airlines. The check-in area (at least in San Francisco) could have been any fly-by-night airline. It's a new player, though, so I don't expect it to have all the built-in set-up that I've experienced otherwise.

The big question is whether it's worth it. As a low-cost airline, Virgin's good. It doesn't beat Southwest for price, except in the case of a sale, which is a tossup. At the lowest, I could get a Virgin flight between the Bay Area and Seattle for $69 and for $73 on Southwest. That's a Virgin SALE though. Standard flights are about $130 one-way. Still good, but about $50 more than the standard Southwest flights.

And for comfort, it doesn't quite match Horizon Air, which has free alcohol on all flights. (The one time I flew Horizon, I felt WONDERFUL by the time I landed.)

But it seems to be an airline that has very level flight prices even close to the date (I picked my ticket up less than two weeks ago.) At $130, that's not a bad deal.

I wrote most of this on the flight, just adding a bit at the end now.