Virgin America Elevate - VirginAmerica Flight 0404 Sunday Nov 13

This flight from LAX to JFK encountered the worst turbulence I have ever felt in my life. It lasted for 2 hours and the flight attendants had their seat belts AND shoulder restraints on the entire time. People were vomiting. One woman was crying. The pilot was trying to reassure the passengers. Ive never had turbulence last for quite so long.

Welcome to FT! Typically trip reports are slightly longer than yours...! ;)

This flight from LAX to JFK encountered the worst turbulence I have ever felt in my life. It lasted for 2 hours and the flight attendants had their seat belts AND shoulder restraints on the entire time. People were vomiting. One woman was crying. The pilot was trying to reassure the passengers. Ive never had turbulence last for quite so long.

I'm glad that I have never experienced anything like this.

So, um... was there anything good about this flight? Were you in First Class or Coach? What were people vomiting up? (Was there a meal? Was it better going down than coming up? :D) How'd you like all the whistles and bells aboard Virgin's aircraft compared to other airlines you'd flown?

Please forgive my odd sense of humor, but what I hope you can appreciate from my comment is that with a title like VirginAmerica Flight 0404 Sunday Nov 13, most readers here are going to be curious about all the things that weren't mentioned in your report.

FlyerTalk's Trip Reports Forum is a great place for readers to learn about what a flight on Virgin America is like. Many of them haven't flown VA before and so don't know what to expect. Turbulence is no fun for anyone, but it could affect any flight regardless of airline. Most readers here will click on a title like yours because they hunger for details about the product, i.e. the seating comfort, the service, the meal, the inflight entertainment system, your thoughts on VA compared to other airlines you've flown, etc. These things represent the main course, while additional details such as turbulence, upset passengers, crying babies are more along the lines of spice. Read through some of the flight reports here in the Trip Report forum and you'll see what I'm talking about.

Here's wishing you nicer flights through friendlier skies, and if you care to submit another trip report about it all, we'll look forward to reading it. :)

..and as this seems to be a commentary rather than a TR we'll pop this over to the Virgin America forum.

Swanhunter
Moderator, Trip Reports

I just looked at the weather map for that day, and it was particularly bad (http://www.hpc.ncep.noaa.gov/dailywxmap/index_20111113.html)

I also looked at the flightaware tracking log, and it looks like the crew tried several different altitudes. (http://flightaware.com/live/flight/VRD404/history/20111113/1540Z/KLAX/KJFK/tracklog)

Sorry you had to go through that. Looks like it was just a particularly bad day to fly. I would be curious to know if any airline was able to get around all of that...