VX 836 LAX-SFO 9/9/08 N636VA

I also watched two episodes of "Entourage" in flight. "Vegas baby Vegas" and then "No Cannes Do," in which they arrive at LAX to find out that "France Airways" has canceled their flight to Cannes due to a DHS "red alert." I noticed that the ticket board said "France Airways" but then the sign over the counter said "Virgin Atlantic." Yes, it was actually filmed at T2. I did not know there was non-stop service between LAX and Cannes.
Back to the subject, RED worked fine. I watched a little CNN and CNBC also, and the picture froze once, but otherwise it seemed ok.

The F seats are simply fabulous...'nuff said, the aircraft was very clean, and the crew was personable.

Unfortunately, the ground portion of things at LAX was a bit of a mess. Check-in and security were both uneventful, but VX continued to list the flight as on-time (both on the website and the monitors), even though it clearly wasn't. VX has been using gates 68 and 69 (UA gates) on a periodic basis since F9 moved over to gate 67a from T3. So the only real "dedicated" VX gate is 67b for the time being.

The inbound parked at gate 68a, slightly late, but I figured even if we left late, we'd make it up in flight (90 minutes blocked for LAX-SFO, when the flight is only 50-55 min). After all, the flight was still showing as on-time. Then, it took the gate agent eleven minutes (yes, I was seated right by the window) to connect the jetbridge to the aircraft. It was absolutely agonizing to watch. He/she was so tentative...moving the jetbridge a foot forward, then a foot back, then a few inches to one side, then a couple inches to the other side. I was thinking it must be his/her first day on the job. The jetbridge seemed to set at more or less the right height, so I don't know what was so hard about it. Anyway, they finally got the door open and pax started deplaning. After deplaning, it took another 15 minutes or so while they wheeled a VX computer podium over to the gate area. And then the monitor dídn't work after they plugged it in. After fiddling around some more, they just decided to board us all, writing down our BP sequence numbers on a piece of white paper as we boarded, and they'd enter it into the computer at the main gate later. We finally left 50 minutes late (1 hr 12 minutes to turn around a 3/4 full A320), but only arrived 28 late due to padding.

Anyway, hopefully VX operations at LAX will be a bit smoother after they get moved to T3! I later found out the inbound was late due to having to dodge thunderstroms en route from JFK to LAX, but I certainly didn't find out any info from the gate staff...