As a resident of Northern California, who travels frequently (every week) to Southern California, as well as to numerous other places around the country and the globe, I’ve heard a lot of good things about San Francisco’s new hometown airline, Virgin America. However, as a very active road warrior for the past 5 years, I have flown almost exclusively on United and its international Star Alliance partners. As a United 1K member, I receive excellent customer service. More importantly, there a number of important perks available to me that make traveling a bit easier. These include: (1) priority security lines and “red carpet” boarding; (2) no checked bag fees; (3) reduced Red Carpet Club fees; (4) more and easier upgrade options; (5) a dedicated “800” number; and (6) more flexibility when I need to change my plans at the last minute. Moreover, United flies nonstop from San Francisco to the places I travel most often – primarily LAX, ORD, LAS, BOS, JFK, EWR, LHR, FRA and NRT. (Personally, I think that United’s PS service from JFK to LAX/SFO is the best domestic service in the country.)

I achieved 1K status for 2010 in late August. Still, I am racking up the UA miles because when I am not traveling to the east coast, Midwest or internationally, I am flying to LAX every Monday morning and returning to SFO every Friday evening. I expect to end 2010 with more than 135,000 miles on United.

Still, because so many of my colleagues and friends rave about Virgin America, I decided to step away from Untied and test the waters for one of my weekend home trips. As luck would have it, my parents had to cancel a trip on Virgin to visit SF over Labor Day. I paid them for the “credit” and called Virgin to make my own reservation. The reservation agent was very helpful and in a manner of minutes I was set go on VX 949, departing LAX at 8:15p on Friday, October 23rd and arriving at SFO at 9:30p. I pre-reserved Seat 5F. So far, so good.

I checked in for my flight the night before and opted to upgrade to first class for an additional $50. Upgrading was easy and in a few short minutes I had my boarding pass in hand.

On Friday, I left my office in downtown Los Angeles at 5:00p and headed toward LAX. Fighting the rush hour traffic is never pleasant and it took me almost an hour to make it to the Wally Park garage about a mile from the LAX terminals. After a short shuttle ride to Terminal 3, I found myself in a very long line at the TSA checkpoint (no checked bags on this trip); so long in fact that for safety reasons I had to wait at the bottom of the escalator that led to the departure level. Passengers were sent up in groups of ten to avoid a crush of people at the top. Virgin America shares T3 with Alaska/Horizon Airlines and V Australia. At this time of day Alaska had a number of scheduled departures to various destinations up and down the West Coast. Moreover, V Australia’s 777 service to Sydney was scheduled to depart at 9:10p. In a nutshell, the terminal was very busy (with way too many obnoxious children without proper parental supervision) and this was reflected in the long line at security. I was disappointed that there was not a priority security line for first class and “premier” frequent fliers for T3’s airlines. I spent a total of 40 minutes waiting to clear the TSA checkpoint.

In contrast, Terminal 7 (United) at that time of day is relatively quiet. Although United and United Express have a number of west coast departures in the early evening hours, T7 generally does not get busy until 8:00p or so when passengers begin arriving at the airport for the longer haul East Coast red eye flights and United’s nightly service to Sydney. This coupled with the priority security line for 1K fliers means that it usually takes me only 5 minutes or so to make it through T7’s TSA checkpoint.

Once through security I grabbed a bite to eat at Gladstone’s and then spent some time exploring T3 and its views of LAX’s north side. As an avid plane watcher, it was nice to get a different perspective of the airport. VX 949 was scheduled to board at Gate 37A at 7:40p for a scheduled 8:15p departure. All of the VX departure monitors throughout T3 indicated an on time departure. At 7:20p, however, our aircraft still had not arrived at the gate and at 7:30p the VX agent announced that the in-bound aircraft would not arrive until almost 8:00p due to its late departure out of IAD. Our departure was pushed back 30 minutes to 8:45p. Maybe VX was thinking that the time would be made up in the air; however, given that flights coming from the east are subject the head winds, the airline should have known well before 7:30p that the plane would be late. VX should have made this information known much sooner as a courtesy to those of us waiting for VX 949, as well as those waiting for passengers on the inbound flight from IAD.

The inbound aircraft finally arrived and we began boarding at 8:35p. I was pleased the F passengers were given priority boarding and soon I was tucked into Seat 1F. The interior of the plane itself was very appealing. The mood lighting provided a relaxed atmosphere, and the see-though cabin dividers gave the aircraft an open feeling. VX has the same boarding issues as any other airline, primarily too many pieces of carry on luggage, not enough overhead space and people who refuse to use the space under the seat in front of them.

VX 949 was a very full flight and the flight attendants and ground staff did their best to move things along. At one point a woman stowed her “wheelie” bag over my row. At the time I thought she was in 2F behind me, which was still vacant. Much to my surprise, however, she continued back to the Y section. A few minutes later the passenger assigned to 2F boarded and found that there was no space for her “wheelie.” The gate agent told her that she would need to check her bag into the belly of the aircraft. At that point, the passenger in 1A and 1B pointed out that the bag above my seat was for a Y passenger and that it should be removed and checked to make room for the F passenger’s bag. We were almost ready to go and the gate agent clearly wanted to get the flight on its way. She threw up her hands in frustration and literally yelled, “everyone just stop talking and keep your comments to yourself.” At this point the man in 1B got up, removed the Y passenger’s bag and put the F passenger’s bag into the overhead bin. This clearly frustrated the very irate gate agent, who reluctantly put a baggage check tag on the removed bag and sent it to the belly of the aircraft.

We left the gate at 9:00p and were airborne shortly thereafter thanks to the very short taxi to Runway 24L.

The FA service was adequate, but I did not expect anything elaborate on such a short flight. The seats were very comfortable and included leg/foot rests. The best part of the flight was the IFE. It offered many movie, TV and music choices, as well as Wi-Fi service. I spent the majority of the flight rewatching the premier episode of “Modern Family,” a hilarious new show on ABC.

We touched down on Runway 28L at SFO around 9:55p and made a fairly quick taxi to the International Terminal. I was off the plane at 10:04p and in the car on the way to Marin County at 10:08p. All in all, not a bad experience. I must admit that I was taken aback by the gate agent’s outburst, but felt that everyone else whom I dealt with at VX was pleasant and helpful.

Will I make the switch from United to Virgin America? No. United gets a bad rap from many people, and I clearly understand that as a 1K customer I receive better treatment than the person who only flies with UA once or twice a year. Maybe it is just luck or good karma, but my United experiences with UA personnel are uniformly positive. Sure, I run into the nasty gate agent or FA every one in a while, but those are (at least in my case) rare occurrences. Moreover, I like having the RCC available to me and well as flexible travel options. Almost every Friday I am booked on the 8:00p departure to SFO, but make it to LAX early enough to catch the 6:16p departure. Eighty percent of the time United is able to move me to the earlier flight (without a fee) and preserve my upgrade. Moreover, during the past 2 years more than 75% of my upgrade requests have cleared for longer transcon and international flights.

Of course, if I was starting out as a road warrior, I might have a different point of view and become more of a Virgin fan and a steady Virgin customer.

Tomorrow I travel back to LAX on the return leg of my Virgin trip. I’ll do another post if anything interesting happens.