virgin america

The future of in-flight entertainment in an iPad age

During the past decade, airlines have been keeping passengers' eyes focused on the seat backs in front of them, filling in-flight entertainment systems up with satellite TV, real-time maps, and movies on demand. But does the proliferation of devices like the iPad mean people will stop paying attention?

It's a particularly compelling question for Virgin America, which runs an in-flight entertainment system called Red that's inarguably the fanciest out of any U.S. airline. Virgin is still on its way to profitability--it recently posted a first-quarter loss of $35.5 million, narrower than last year's--and while trying … Read more

A few minutes in the sky with Richard Branson

Virgin Group CEO and entrepreneurial icon Richard Branson promised "one hell of a party" for the kickoff flight for air carrier Virgin America's first international route from San Francisco to Toronto on Tuesday, and if the trays of mimosas and acai-cranberry cocktails that kept getting toted past his first-class seat were any indication, his promise would not be broken.

Branson, a British national who was knighted in 1999, has become one of Silicon Valley's icons of late for his enterprises in green energy and the fledgling Virgin Galactic space company, and Virgin America is headquartered in … Read more

Green tech, jobs hailed in Virgin America expansion

SAN FRANCISCO--So a British billionaire, a Hollywood action hero, and an unusually good-looking city politician walk into an airport terminal.

That would be Virgin Group CEO Sir Richard Branson, California governor (and erstwhile Terminator) Arnold Schwarzenegger, and San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom, who were all on hand at San Francisco International Airport on Tuesday morning to kick off Virgin America's inaugural flight from San Francisco to Toronto. It's the three-year-old Burlingame, Calif.-based airline's first international route.

"To get Virgin America established, we had many battles," Branson said in the press conference, sounding more like … Read more

Social network's CEO documents flight nightmare live

Flying is increasingly becoming pleasant only for proctologists.

However, one CEO, David Martin, perhaps now considers himself fortunate to have been on Saturday's flying Alcatraz that was the Virgin America flight from LA to New York.

This flight seems to have consisted of a diversion away from JFK due to high winds. It then involved a landing at Stewart International Airport, which does not seem to be an international airport owned by Rod Stewart but some little outpost 90 miles northwest of New York.

Passengers were then kept on the plane for somewhere between four and a half and … Read more

CNET TV Apple Byte: When Steve says no Flash, the world listens

In this edition of CNET TV's Apple Byte, Brian Tong discusses Apple's recent lawsuit against mobile handset maker HTC for patent violations, Virgin America loses Flash in favor of a more universal, iPhone-friendly website, and the iPad gets an official release date.

Be sure to check us out on Twitter and the CNET Mac forums. Do you have questions, issues, or stories you would like to see on MacFixIt? Email Us.

Buzz Out Loud Podcast 1177: Nerd freestyle

We stayed on the rails pretty well in this episode, but there's a whole long thing about cake toward the end that the chat room dubbed "nerd freestyle" and, well, we love that. In other news, new TiVo underwhelms a bit (other than the remote) and Viacom goes all anti-Internet with "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report." That's the cake part.

Subscribe with iTunes (audio) Subscribe with iTunes (video) Subscribe with RSS (audio) Subscribe with RSS (video) Episode 1177

TiVo unveils Series4 ‘Premiere’ DVRs with enhanced online integration http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10462438-1.html?… Read more

Free Wi-Fi for the holidays on Virgin America

Travelers flying on Virgin America over the holidays will get free in-flight Wi-Fi thanks to Google, the companies said Monday.

Google and Virgin America are teaming up to offer free Wi-Fi Internet service for all Virgin America passengers traveling between November 10, 2009, and January 15, 2010.

The Gogo Wi-Fi service, which was rolled out to Virgin America's entire fleet of planes in May, is normally available for $12.95 for flights of over three hours. It's $9.95 for flights between one and a half hours and three hours. Flights of less than an hour and a … Read more

Virgin America offers consumer carbon offsets

Virgin America announced Thursday it will offer customers the option to pay a voluntary fee when booking their ticket, which will go toward supporting carbon offset projects.

The U.S. domestic airline based in California, of which Richard Branson's Virgin Group is a minority share investor, has partnered with Carbonfund.org on the effort.

Through Carbonfund.org, the money Virgin America collects from consumers will be directed toward projects sanctioned by the Environmental Defense Fund's (EDF) official CarbonOffsetList.org.

One of the projects from that list that Virgin America chose to support, for example, is IdleAire.

IdleAire lets … Read more

Blogging from 25,000 feet

Update at 7:35 p.m. PST: Photos from the flight and a few extra observations have been added.

For an aviation geek like me, the simple act of flying is more then enough reason to get on a plane.

So when sassy airline Virgin America offered CNET the chance to test its new Gogo in-flight Wi-Fi service, I jumped at the chance. And yes, I'm writing this 25,000 feet or so (we're still climbing) above the Northern California coast. We're cruising on an hour-long demonstration flight out of the San Francisco International Airport. Check out … Read more

Virgin America plans Wi-Fi launch party in the sky

Virgin America is teaming up with YouTube for its big coming-out party for its Wi-Fi in the sky service.

The California-based airline will launch its Gogo Inflight Internet service on November 22 in a flight over San Francisco. To show off how robust the in-flight Internet service is, the company is planning to stream a live video feed from the plane down to the ground to an audience attending the YouTube Live concert in San Francisco.

The Gogo service will be available to all passengers on a single Wi-Fi enabled plane starting November 24. And by the second quarter of … Read more