Pre-CES: Virgin America - where else can your seat be rebooted?

On the way to the CES I took Virgin America, the new airline venture from Virgin, and had the bizarre experience of having my seat re-booted, no, not rebooked, but re-booted because the remote control unit for my seat wasn't working.

The whole experience was, like most products these days getting our attention, was slick. The plane's interior, staff, even safety video were impeccably trendy, clubby and plastic. Although, the user interface on Leopardstill trumps, what am I really complaining about? We're talking about a plane seat here and it certainly beats any United or Southwest seat. And, it was cheaper than those airlines too.

With all that though, I still question the piloting of the plane. The pilot announced that there would be no further announcements at one point, but that we could track our progress via a Google map. Map didn't work. Other features like in-seat chat with other passengers may be cool if you weren't otherwise distracted, or if the plane's seats were lower, or maybe if the interior lighting was brighter than bar lighting, but nevertheless all these distractions didn't distract me from the sudden bumps during take-off, during the flight and while landing.

Perhaps all the design, packing and innovation may not be enough if your bases aren't covered. It still looked cool though.