ExperienceCurve by Karl Long

Well I just got back from a weekend in Las Vegas and after 4 days there I have a much deeper understanding of the fear and loathing aspect of it. Believe it or not one of the high points of the trip was the flight on Virgin America, who just blew away all my expectations of what a short haul domestic flight can actually be. I travel a lot and have the same opinion about domestic airlines as I do credit card companies, and cell phone carriers, they are a necessary evil and the company, its policies or its employees will ruin your day on a regular enough basis to keep you just on the edge of cutting them off but you stick around for the points or because you know no one else is any better.

Now first off, let me just say, they have a regular 110 three pronged outlet on every seat, I could actually just stop there, they already blew me away. I sat on the plane with my cell phone charging while watching Battlestar Gallactica on my nicely charging Mac Book Pro, Hallelujah, but it doesn’t stop there.

Virgin has implemented some pretty amazing technology in the computer that is in the back of every headrest, and yes, it is a computer. I know because mine crashed and the flight attendent had to restart it. As it bootstrapped I felt like the girl in Jurassic part who’s looking at the computer screen saying “I know this, this is UNIX”, well actually it was Linux, but each one is it’s own terminal I guess. Yes it crashed, yes it’s beta, but things are looking great.

There are tonnes of things to explore like maps, movies, tv shows, music to select from, and even a “login” option so your preferences and playlists will follow you from plane to plane. The thing that I thought was totally cool was a whole rake of chat options. You could IM seat to seat, you could go in a chatroom for the whole plane, or a chatroom that was along side a tv show, totally awesome. Kind of helps alleviate the classic “seat lottery” of it being dependent on you actually sitting next to someone interesting, or yes hawt, with the chat hope springs eternal that you can find someone else interesting to talk to.

So not only can you chat with hotties through the computer, you can also order drinks, I’ve always hated it since they started charging for a drink on the plane the whole rigmarole of digging through your pockets for the money for a beer, and the attendents never having any change, or not able to take your credit card. Through the screen you can pick your beverages or snacks any time, slide your credit card through and your icy cold beverage or snack is there in two minutes, sure you pay a bit more, but your not dependent on the dreaded cart coming by on one of its slow circuits.

Oh and don’t let me forget the safety video… yes, the safety video, ever hear peals of laughter burst out on a plane during the safety briefing? I thought not, I’ve done a thorough search and I could not find it on youtube but it will not be long. I don’t know how long it will be funny for, but for the first time i was again, blown away.

These are some of the technological highlights if you like, the shiny bits, but the thing above all that set the Virgin experience way above the rest was the people. Every interaction I had with every member of staff was excellent. Yes they are new, and the staff are keen, but it’s obvious they are hiring for personality above experience, you know staff are empowered when they put their own spin on each interaction. When we were boarding the plane in the usual groups, in between groups the attendant said the next person to guess his age could get on

Even more extraordinary, the person sitting in the seat in front of me and my buddy was a one of Virgin America’s pilots. We had a very good chat with him, talking about the planes and the business, and asked some questions about the reward program. I asked about signing up for the rewards program after the fact and how to get credit for this trip and he said we could just use our boarding cards, then he gave us his business card with his email “in case we had any problems”, wow.