10 August 2007

Virgin America's in-flight system

Engadget has a LOT of photos and a pretty thorough writeup on Red, which is Virgin America's in-flight entertainment system. My thoughts on some of the features:

  • 9-inch touchscreen. Nice, but will I need to bring my own alcohol screen wipes to clean snotty finger trails from the kid who had previously been in my seat?
  • Plane-wide chat system. Each TV channel also has its own chatroom, so you can make snarky comments about Keanu's acting. Or see if the cute blonde in seat 14C is lurking in another chatroom.
  • Order food and drinks (and SkyMall, soon) and pay using your credit card. The system also keeps tabs on inventory, so it will tell you when the galley has run out of salmon.
  • Streaming MP3 playback. I like this, and I'll probably be getting a lot of use out of it. I don't suppose they'll have any of the music that I like, though?
  • Streaming pay-per-view movies. At $6-8 per movie it's almost as expensive as going to see it on the big screen, but at least you have a choice if you'd rather not watch Happy Feet for the barf-teenth time.
  • Play other games, including Doom. Speaking of barf. Is playing a motion-sickness-inducing FPS (or racing games for that matter) on an airplane a good idea? Better make sure you have your airsick bag ready.
They'll be starting their LA-DC route in a couple of months! I can use visiting my friends as an excuse to fly VA. :)

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