VA vs UA trip report SFO-LAX-SFO
Aug 18, 2007, 10:07 am
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: LAX
Programs: AA Gold (prev. Ex Plat for 10 years); DL Plat; UA Gold; Hilton Diamond
Posts: 2,339
VA vs UA trip report SFO-LAX-SFO
This week I flew SFO-LAX on Virgin America and LAX-SFO on UA, both legs in first class, following by SFO-LAX on Virgin America. I wanted to offer a brief trip report comparing my experiences with Virgin America to those I've had on United in the past.
I fly SFO-LAX-SFO three times a month. I travel during peak times, peak days, and often book far in advance to take advantage of the lowest fares available. As a 1K I clear upgrades nearly 100% of the time so most of my trips are in F; thus, I booked F on Virgin America to compare appes to apples.
PRE-FLIGHT
VX uses the int'l terminal, A gates; security was backed up with afternoon departures to AMS, LHRx2 and CDG. Took me about 15 minutes to clear and we were supposed to have begun boarding. I walked up to see they had changed the boarding time by 20 minutes. No explanation given until they started boarding, at which time they said they were settling a maintenance issue. Aren't their planes brand new?
On-board I was greeted by a nice smelling new cabin and bright leather seats. Oh wait...not THAT bright. On day 5 of their operations, the back of the seat in front of me was covered in soda splatter, one of the pockets was stuffed with used tissues and a dirty napkin and there were pen marks on my seat. There was also soda splatter on the side wall and part of the arm rest. We were offered pre-departure drinks which never came, and never came, and never came...
We sat. And we sat. Took them 35 minutes to board the plane and we were already 20 minutes behind schedule. We continued sitting. No explanation from anyone. Finally they closed the door and our drinks came out in plastic glasses only to be taken back 1 minute later. We continued sitting at the gate for 15 minutes more. Finally the captain came on and welcomed everyone but didn't explain why we were now 40 minutes late and not moving.
Finally we push and they begin the safety demo; 6/8 people in first class had their TVs out and seats reclined and were not asked to stow their TVs or put their seats up. Safety demo took longer than on UA but then the crew are new so may not have it down yet. Bonus points for VX's well-written script; more logical than UA's.
We taxi into position for take off, tvs in F still out, seats still reclined. Alright, whatever.
IN-FLIGHT
Take off and the first class FA comes around to take drink orders; I order a gin and tonic. She comes back 5 minutes later to let me know they do not carry gin - only vodka and some other liqeurs - so I select a vodka tonic. It comes back to my seat with a tiny box containing three plastic shot-glass sized portions of "appetizers". One caprese salad, one chocolate mousse with candied orange, and one prosciutto/melon. None of the three had any noticeable flavor but hey, at least it is something to eat. Drinks came in nice tall glasses.
The much-hyped massage function actually are not working well - the flight attendant told us all how to turn it on but said the function is so light most people do not feel it. "We're still working out those bugs." Mm hmmm....how long have you had the planes sitting at SFO, then?
IFE
I played around with "RED", their in-flight entertainment. The system is pretty slick actually but what annoyed me were two things - the images on the screens are stretched, seems like they have the aspect ratios all wrong in the settings, and many of the features do not work. Click on the "read" link and you get a message "This feature is not yet available; please check again on your next flight!" Same for shopping. Same for e-mail, and so on. Oh well, watched a quick episode of The Office.
CABIN
Overall nice - as mentioned, my seat was already quite dirty and there was trash in the seat pocket. Went to the lavatory and it smelled dirty. Mood lighting got on my nerves and I found the cabin very, very dark - in addition to the mood lighting, the carpet is charcoal gray. Economy looked like a cave, not bright and cheerful.
We landed in LAX about 20 minutes behind schedule and the captain finally apologized, said there were weight and balance issues and as a new airline they were still teething. Fair enough.
Return flight was similar, I was in the same seat on the same plane (different day though) and it was still dirty, although the trash had been removed. We were again about 20 minutes late.
Comparing this to my average UA flight, I have to say that on a short hop like SFO-LAX I could care less about RED or fancy mood lighting or massage functions that do not work. What's important to me is a schedule that employees work to keep honest, frequent flights, and most importantly, convenience. I find UA's terminal 3 more convenient in SFO than the int'l terminal...fewer afternoon backups at security. Great food options for carry-on.
I feel like Virgin is working too hard to be "cutesy" and is trying to cast a hipster image; in the end, they'll need to learn that it's not how hip the airline is. On shorthauls, what people care about is reliability. They don't care so much about RED nor massage seats. And most important, the people who are considered the cash cows for airlines - business travellers - need flexibility and a convenient schedule at their hands. I noted that on the day of my flight, all of the F seats had been sold on all of the flights in SFO-LAX. Had I been on business that day and needed to take a later flight (impossible because I was on the last one at 6:00p anyway), I would have been out of luck.
On transcons it would be nice to have some TV to watch, sure; but frankly, I'd rather do that on Jetblue and enjoy 36" legroom in coach than on Virgin with 32" and a limited schedule (at least initially). Call me crazy. I think VX could possibly have an effect on SERVICE and will certainly affect pricing. But, with the service experience from my first 2 flights with them, I'd be reluctant to go back.
Flight attendants are pretty tho.
OK, that was not so brief. Sorry.
I fly SFO-LAX-SFO three times a month. I travel during peak times, peak days, and often book far in advance to take advantage of the lowest fares available. As a 1K I clear upgrades nearly 100% of the time so most of my trips are in F; thus, I booked F on Virgin America to compare appes to apples.
PRE-FLIGHT
VX uses the int'l terminal, A gates; security was backed up with afternoon departures to AMS, LHRx2 and CDG. Took me about 15 minutes to clear and we were supposed to have begun boarding. I walked up to see they had changed the boarding time by 20 minutes. No explanation given until they started boarding, at which time they said they were settling a maintenance issue. Aren't their planes brand new?
On-board I was greeted by a nice smelling new cabin and bright leather seats. Oh wait...not THAT bright. On day 5 of their operations, the back of the seat in front of me was covered in soda splatter, one of the pockets was stuffed with used tissues and a dirty napkin and there were pen marks on my seat. There was also soda splatter on the side wall and part of the arm rest. We were offered pre-departure drinks which never came, and never came, and never came...
We sat. And we sat. Took them 35 minutes to board the plane and we were already 20 minutes behind schedule. We continued sitting. No explanation from anyone. Finally they closed the door and our drinks came out in plastic glasses only to be taken back 1 minute later. We continued sitting at the gate for 15 minutes more. Finally the captain came on and welcomed everyone but didn't explain why we were now 40 minutes late and not moving.
Finally we push and they begin the safety demo; 6/8 people in first class had their TVs out and seats reclined and were not asked to stow their TVs or put their seats up. Safety demo took longer than on UA but then the crew are new so may not have it down yet. Bonus points for VX's well-written script; more logical than UA's.
We taxi into position for take off, tvs in F still out, seats still reclined. Alright, whatever.
IN-FLIGHT
Take off and the first class FA comes around to take drink orders; I order a gin and tonic. She comes back 5 minutes later to let me know they do not carry gin - only vodka and some other liqeurs - so I select a vodka tonic. It comes back to my seat with a tiny box containing three plastic shot-glass sized portions of "appetizers". One caprese salad, one chocolate mousse with candied orange, and one prosciutto/melon. None of the three had any noticeable flavor but hey, at least it is something to eat. Drinks came in nice tall glasses.
The much-hyped massage function actually are not working well - the flight attendant told us all how to turn it on but said the function is so light most people do not feel it. "We're still working out those bugs." Mm hmmm....how long have you had the planes sitting at SFO, then?
IFE
I played around with "RED", their in-flight entertainment. The system is pretty slick actually but what annoyed me were two things - the images on the screens are stretched, seems like they have the aspect ratios all wrong in the settings, and many of the features do not work. Click on the "read" link and you get a message "This feature is not yet available; please check again on your next flight!" Same for shopping. Same for e-mail, and so on. Oh well, watched a quick episode of The Office.
CABIN
Overall nice - as mentioned, my seat was already quite dirty and there was trash in the seat pocket. Went to the lavatory and it smelled dirty. Mood lighting got on my nerves and I found the cabin very, very dark - in addition to the mood lighting, the carpet is charcoal gray. Economy looked like a cave, not bright and cheerful.
We landed in LAX about 20 minutes behind schedule and the captain finally apologized, said there were weight and balance issues and as a new airline they were still teething. Fair enough.
Return flight was similar, I was in the same seat on the same plane (different day though) and it was still dirty, although the trash had been removed. We were again about 20 minutes late.
Comparing this to my average UA flight, I have to say that on a short hop like SFO-LAX I could care less about RED or fancy mood lighting or massage functions that do not work. What's important to me is a schedule that employees work to keep honest, frequent flights, and most importantly, convenience. I find UA's terminal 3 more convenient in SFO than the int'l terminal...fewer afternoon backups at security. Great food options for carry-on.
I feel like Virgin is working too hard to be "cutesy" and is trying to cast a hipster image; in the end, they'll need to learn that it's not how hip the airline is. On shorthauls, what people care about is reliability. They don't care so much about RED nor massage seats. And most important, the people who are considered the cash cows for airlines - business travellers - need flexibility and a convenient schedule at their hands. I noted that on the day of my flight, all of the F seats had been sold on all of the flights in SFO-LAX. Had I been on business that day and needed to take a later flight (impossible because I was on the last one at 6:00p anyway), I would have been out of luck.
On transcons it would be nice to have some TV to watch, sure; but frankly, I'd rather do that on Jetblue and enjoy 36" legroom in coach than on Virgin with 32" and a limited schedule (at least initially). Call me crazy. I think VX could possibly have an effect on SERVICE and will certainly affect pricing. But, with the service experience from my first 2 flights with them, I'd be reluctant to go back.
Flight attendants are pretty tho.
OK, that was not so brief. Sorry.
Aug 18, 2007, 11:00 am
#2
Join Date: May 2007
Location: IAD
Programs: UA/MAR
Posts: 724
Great report, thanks! I've been contemplating trying them out on my next Trans-con, but after hearing this report and several others like it, I think I'll hold off. I need all my miles to try to push for status anyway. 
Aug 18, 2007, 11:16 am
#3
Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: Arlington, VA; Boston, MA
Programs: UA 2p
Posts: 284
Wow, I knew the white seats would get soiled, but not THAT quickly! One can only imagine what father time has up his sleeve... all you need is one spill of Fanta orange...although maybe with the moodlighting, it will match.
Aug 18, 2007, 11:31 am
#5
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: SFOSJCOAK
Programs: AA-EXP & 1MM+, AS, MR-LTT, HH Gold
Posts: 7,581
Good report, real "apples to apples". Disappointed at VX performance. The "teething" period might take months. At first I was sort of excited about taking a transcon service. Well, I'll wait for better reports.
Aug 18, 2007, 11:42 am
#6
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: So. California
Programs: UA 1K
Posts: 611
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.0) BlackBerry8800/4.2.1 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/102)
Great report. Doesn't look like they'll be able to lure too many UA FF's because for me it's always been about dependability and FC is just a perk (which I almost always get u/g to). But at least for the time being not too much to worry about regarding VA. Nevertheless, do you think UA will smarten up it's FC service if the VA competition really gets established and running smoothly?
Great report. Doesn't look like they'll be able to lure too many UA FF's because for me it's always been about dependability and FC is just a perk (which I almost always get u/g to). But at least for the time being not too much to worry about regarding VA. Nevertheless, do you think UA will smarten up it's FC service if the VA competition really gets established and running smoothly?
Aug 18, 2007, 11:49 am
#7
Join Date: Aug 1999
Location: Australia
Posts: 2,814
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.0) BlackBerry8800/4.2.1 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/102)
Great report. Doesn't look like they'll be able to lure too many UA FF's because for me it's always been about dependability and FC is just a perk (which I almost always get u/g to). But at least for the time being not too much to worry about regarding VA. Nevertheless, do you think UA will smarten up it's FC service if the VA competition really gets established and running smoothly?
Great report. Doesn't look like they'll be able to lure too many UA FF's because for me it's always been about dependability and FC is just a perk (which I almost always get u/g to). But at least for the time being not too much to worry about regarding VA. Nevertheless, do you think UA will smarten up it's FC service if the VA competition really gets established and running smoothly?
I hope that UA will be forced to show that it is just not a low cost carrier by providing some premium services like better catering in F.
Having said that - from my own rlimited ecent experience, the FAs certainly domestically have shown an improvement in service so maybe we are seeing some real changes - hopefully with more to come!
Aug 18, 2007, 1:10 pm
#9
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 544
IFE
I played around with "RED", their in-flight entertainment. The system is pretty slick actually but what annoyed me were two things - the images on the screens are stretched, seems like they have the aspect ratios all wrong in the settings, and many of the features do not work.
I played around with "RED", their in-flight entertainment. The system is pretty slick actually but what annoyed me were two things - the images on the screens are stretched, seems like they have the aspect ratios all wrong in the settings, and many of the features do not work.
This is particularly annoying on DL's touchscreen IFE units. The movies are all pan-and-scan, 4:3 aspect ratio and stretched by default to the little 16:9 screen. At least there's a button to disable the stretch when playing stored content, but why aren't the movies just loaded in anamorphic format like on DVD? Worse is the live TV mode on the ex-Song birds, where all the images are stretched and for some reason there's no option to disable the stretch.
I really, really hope UA gets this right on their new C/F IFE system. Details matter.
Aug 18, 2007, 1:52 pm
#11
Suspended
Join Date: Jul 2004
Posts: 17,769
Thanks for the report. Sounds like they're still getting the bearings. From what you've said, seems it will clearly be superior to UA's offering, when all is said and done. Especially on transcons.
Regarding seats reclined and TV's out, I know that on VS, the FAA has approved them to be reclined for t/o and landing. Perhaps carrying over to VX? Would be weird, but just thinking out loud.
Regarding seats reclined and TV's out, I know that on VS, the FAA has approved them to be reclined for t/o and landing. Perhaps carrying over to VX? Would be weird, but just thinking out loud.
Aug 18, 2007, 3:58 pm
#13
Original Poster
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: LAX
Programs: AA Gold (prev. Ex Plat for 10 years); DL Plat; UA Gold; Hilton Diamond
Posts: 2,339
That was a thought too, but then VS has the herringbone suites and VX has standard int'l recliners. Anyway, if that is truly how they got certified it is a welcome improvement. RED is on from the moment one steps onto the plane so you could sit down, recline and start watching a movie right away.
Aug 18, 2007, 8:16 pm
#15
Join Date: Oct 1999
Location: New York
Posts: 7,352
Agree
Definitely agree with your judgment... but I still think Virgin America will be really "great" after first couple months of "initial" operations.
For LAX-SFO market, it is difficult because UA has this hourly shuttle schedule and the only airline that they may harm is AA, which have a similar limited schedule. VX definitely needs to improve its reliability ASAP! And I believe the only way to create a major threat is to set up an hourly or bi-hourly type operation, which I don't think VX is doing anytime soon.
But I disagree with the food quality... those tapas are really nice... better than any offerings by AA or UA... haha...
I hope VX management is listening now... that reliability is a major problem... It seems that except the first flight out, most of its VX LAX-SFO flights are delayed. Not to mention the problematic SFO-JFK flights...
About the cleaning, I don't think F/As did the cleanings... there is a third party doing it. VX needs to hire a better company or supervise more the progress...
Thanks for your report!
Carfield
For LAX-SFO market, it is difficult because UA has this hourly shuttle schedule and the only airline that they may harm is AA, which have a similar limited schedule. VX definitely needs to improve its reliability ASAP! And I believe the only way to create a major threat is to set up an hourly or bi-hourly type operation, which I don't think VX is doing anytime soon.
But I disagree with the food quality... those tapas are really nice... better than any offerings by AA or UA... haha...
I hope VX management is listening now... that reliability is a major problem... It seems that except the first flight out, most of its VX LAX-SFO flights are delayed. Not to mention the problematic SFO-JFK flights...
About the cleaning, I don't think F/As did the cleanings... there is a third party doing it. VX needs to hire a better company or supervise more the progress...
Thanks for your report!
Carfield