Things in the Sky

I saw a tweet from Virgin America that linked to the airline’s new community page. Before I clicked on the link I wasn’t sure what I would find. If the page would be one of the social networking sites that some other airlines have started, or a blog page like Southwest or JetBlue. It isn’t either of those, and to be quite honest I’m pretty disappointed.

Let’s deal with the first few pages on the website: “The Scoop,” “Essential Guide To,” and “Mind of a Traveler.” “The Scoop” seems to be like a blog, but all three contain customer stories as well, which makes one wonder why three pages were made. I mean, “Essential Guide To” implies some kind of travel tip page. Anyway, let’s look at some of the stories that I believe need some rethinking.

First, in the “Essential Guide To” section, there is a story titled “Fresh Beer.” And while the story does say good things about Virgin’s customer service, it has this section:

I have to travel a lot and I have had it with the greyhound screaming baby express of the other (unnamed) airlines, I’ll give you the their initials – Jet Blue.

Should a Virgin America page (even though it is written by a customer) really insult another airline by name? Plus, a noisy crying baby could be on any airline flight.

Next, there is “Big Pimpin’-Virgin Style” in the “Mind of a Traveler Section,” which contains this interesting tidbit:

But. All eyes were on me, because half the plane hadn’t even figured out how I was getting my food. I actually had to teach the people sitting next to me how to use their interface. They didn’t know what the word interface was. ‘Nuff said.

I think that phrase could easily be interpreted as “Virgin America’s system of ordering meals is very confusing,” which I don’t think is what the airline wants to be said.

Also, the only way to sign up (or so it seems) is to provide a story for the website. In fact, there doesn’t seem to be any community interaction other than posting a testimonial.

The idea of building up an online community is a good one (I think), but I think Virgin America needs to make some changes to the new site. The site it still very new, so I’m hoping it will change and improve in the coming weeks. For example, there some games should be coming online soon.

A few days ago Virgin American launched its inflight Internet service, and the press released made me think of something that was mentioned in a press release from October about Elevate:

*Coming in 2009: Members also will be able to combine points and dollars to redeem on-line. Members will be able to tailor the in-flight experience by loading a favorite play-list or videogame avatar.

Hm…this seems like a very interesting to link-up Virgin America’s entertainment system, Red, and frequent flyer program, Elevate. So here are some things that I would love to see in the future in addition to what Virgin America said, though I have no idea how likely these ideas are.

1. Suggestions for music and movies based on prior purchases.
2. The ability to save video game progress at the end of one flight so a player can pick up from right where he or she left off on another plane and not have to start from scratch.
3. Elevate points for certain video game achievements, or maybe there could be competitions among Elevate members.
4. Saving entertainment purchases. For example, let’s say someone is flying SAN-SFO-JFK, and purchases a movie on the first leg. Wouldn’t it be cool if he or she could continue the movie on the next leg, and heck, even have it start from where he or she stopped watching?

Ok, so there are my pie-in-the-sky suggestions for the future. I’m looking forward to seeing what Virgin America does next year. Feel free to share any ideas you have in the comments.