Route
Seattle - Los Angeles
Aircraft Type
Airbus A320
Airline
Virgin America
Flight
VX796
Cabin Class
Main Cabin Select
Notes
The Good
- Excellent In-flight entertainment with refreshment ordering system
- Cheap upgrades to higher cabin classes
The Bad
- Dire food options
- No pre-flight lounge access
X-Factor
- New planes with stylish mood-lit cabins
- Inflight internet
Introduction
With Virgin Australia now running codeshare flights with Virgin America to eight US cities, we thought it would be a good opportunity to road-test Virgin America's Main Cabin Select offering – an 'Economy Plus'-style product – on a flight from Seattle to Los Angeles, before heading home to Australia.
Main Cabin Select is available at booking time as a more expensive option than booking a full-fare economy ticket, however, if there are seats available, Virgin America offer inexpensive upgrades to Main Cabin Select (24 hours before the flight) and First Class (6 hours before the flight) when you check-in online or at the airport.
These upgrades start at US$39 for the shortest flights.
As well as being available as a paid upgrade to the airline's standard 'Main Cabin' economy section, Main Cabin Select is also what you'll get if you're connecting to a Virgin America service after travelling across the Pacific in Premium Economy on Virgin Australia's 777 service to Los Angeles.
Check-in
At Seattle, Virgin America is located towards the end of the South Terminal, reasonably close to the main security check-point. They operate self-service kiosks, as well as three queues for check-in operators.
The priority check-in line is available for First Class and Main Cabin Select, as well as Platinum, Gold and Silver members of Virgin Australia's Velocity Frequent Flyer programme.
Main Cabin Select also gets you access to the priority security screening line at the airport (as does your Velocity Platinum or Gold card), and the time spent speeding past the slow security queue might well be worth the cost of the upgrade alone.
Virgin America rolls out the red carpet for priority check-in
Lounge
Virgin America doesn't have a lounge at Seattle, in fact it has lounges at only three US airports – San Francisco, New York, and Washington DC – and those are a strictly pay-to-enter affair, even if you're flying first class. Door fees range from US$35 for the San Francisco and Washington DC lounges to $75 for New York.
Seat
Main Cabin Select is currently available on two rows of Virgin Americas Airbus A320s: the better of the two is row 3, which is located behind First Class, separated by a funky purple divider.
In that regard it's similar to the 'extra legroom' economy class row 3 in Virgin Australia's Boeing 737-800s, which is reserved for high-status Velocity members (for which, thankfully, Virgin Australia says it has no plans to convert into a paid 'economy plus' row).
The second Main Cabin Select row is row 10, where I was seated. It's one of two exit rows, so there was no pesky reclining seat in front of me.
The seat's a standard exit row economy seat, with pitch around the 38-inch mark, which means there's a good amount of legroom between you and the seat in front of you.
I could comfortably use my 13" laptop on my lap without any space issues.
At every seat is a USB power outlet, as well as a standard (for America) 110V power socket for keeping your laptop charged throughout the flight.
The cabin of this very new A320 is clean and white, but lit up with deep purple LED mood lights, which gives it a relaxed, inviting and suitably 'hip' feel.
Here's how things look through the lens of Virgin America's PR department.
The reality's a bit darker but still quite appealing.
The LED lighting is used to very good effect throughout the flight.
Meal
Meals in Main Cabin Select definitely fall on the 'economy' end of the food quality scale.
Even for Virgin America's six-hour transcontinental services, which would equate to Australia's coast to coast flights, there's no real option for a substantial meal.
That said, if your flight is two hours or longer, a wide variety of sandwich-style options become available, which is something Virgin Australia could stand to learn from.
The good news is that Virgin America's entire food and drink menu is available free of charge to Main Cabin Select guests, including pre-assembled snack boxes.
The drinks selection includes a decent range of spirits and specialty beers, with some excellent fruit juices if you prefer something non-alcoholic.
What sets Virgin America's buy-on-board system apart from the rest is the ordering system: the entire menu is made available through the inflight entertainment system.
Putting together your meal is just a matter of browsing through the menus, selecting items as you go, and finally selecting the checkout. A few minutes, your flight attendant turns up with your menu selections.
Guests in economy have the same menu options available, but have to pay for their selections – which is also done straight from the screen via credit card.
The whole process seems a lot more efficient than pushing a trolley to every passenger who might not want something...
Entertainment & Service
Virgin America's excellent 'Red' inflight entertainment will be familiar to travellers on Virgin Australia's 777s and newer A330s.
There's a selection of movies, TV shows, and music pre-loaded plus several satellite TV channels.
Red also provides a nifty flight information page, backed by Google Maps.
These let you zoom in on the plane's current location, so that you can figure out what the landmarks are when you see them through your window.
As good as Red is, however, the best entertainment is the in-flight internet service.
This is powered by the Gogo ground-to-air mobile network, so it's pretty fast – there was enough bandwidth there for me to use streaming internet radio from my phone, as well as checking e-mail and Twitter.
Gogo's internet service is available pretty much everywhere over the continental United States, which is great for transcontinental trips, with the cost varying from US$5 to US$18 depending on the length of your flight.
If you're doing a lot of flying with Virgin America you can buy a one-month Traveller Pass for US$35, although Gogo sells its own US$40 pass that's good for one month's worth of inflight Internet on any Gogo-equipped US airline.
Read our hands-on review of Virgin America's inflight Internet
Summary
The service and in-flight product aboard Virgin America is amongst the best I've encountered for a US domestic service, but be aware that Main Cabin Select definitely falls under the 'economy plus' umbrella rather than being a fuller featured 'premium economy' service. The food selections were particularly dire on this short flight.
If you've got the opportunity to upgrade from economy to Main Cabin Extra, it might be worth it for the extra legroom – but if you're paying to upgrade, especially on long flights, don't overlook stepping all the way up to First Class, which is Virgin America's business class.
Christopher is a semi-professional nerd based in Hobart. When not writing code or in the air, his natural habitat is the specialty coffee house of the city he's in at the time.
19 Feb 2012
Total posts 1
I flew Main Cabin Select from LA to NY, I paid the full price and thought it was worth it, mainly for the extra legroom. I thought the food was quite good (no complaints put it that way). However I do recommend the upgrade to their First Class, I waited for the 6 hour point before checking in and managed to upgrade to First Class from Chicago to LA for a mear US70.00, well worth it.
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
20 Mar 2012
Total posts 233
Virgin America did seem like a great airline when I flew SFO-NY with them. But having such a long flight, even in their First Class really made me realise just how great the Virgin Australia A330 coast-to-coast is.
21 Sep 2012
Total posts 49
I can testify to how awful the food choice is even in first class when I flew SFO to LAS - a packet of biscuits and some very bland cheese!
The seat was very comfortable though and lots of leg room.
23 Oct 2012
Total posts 1
I flew Main Cabin Select last week from LAX - ORD in seat 3F. It was a good flight, with good leg room but one very strange thing.
When I boarded at 11 am, all the window shades were lowered, so it was like walking into a dark cave. I found this very strange, and the windows stayed down during boarding , then push back and taxy. This was obviously a deliberate measure, As I heard a passenger behind me reprimand his daughter for pushing the shade up on push back. The only logical expalnantion I can think of is so people can watch the on demand video entertainment system. I found it very strange, as we are required here in Australia to keep the shades up for DEP and ARR. It was very strange as we made our approach, and despite sneaking several peaks outside whilst descending ( to the annoyance of my neighbors watching some crappy third rate rom com) it was quite a surprise when the wheels touched down without knowing it was about to happen.
Also, and particularly as some one who likes to watch the scenery outside the aircraft, particularly when OS, I am not a fan, and would avoid them in future.
21 Sep 2012
Total posts 49
They were open when I flew SFO to LAS thankfully as the scenery was excellent.
What I found strange was them not checking your ticket as you boarded - normally they double check it to make sure you are on right plane on the right day etc. Stewardess couldn't give me two monkeys when I walked onto plane and showed her mine was simply told get to seat!
Virgin Australia - Velocity Rewards
10 Jan 2012
Total posts 258
I had the same experience when I flew LAX-JFK and JFK-SFO. to JFK I was in 3D and it was night, but still it was a strange experience to go the whole flight without having a window shade open. On the flight side of things, I loved row 3, the on demand ordering system is phenomenal, the IFE was good and the seats, not too bad.
JFK-SFO I was in F and it was a day flight. I asked the FA if I could raise the shade and he had no problem with that. I kept it raised the whole flight while everyone else kept theirs closed. It's obviously not an FAA regulation to have the shades opened.
Virgin Australia - Velocity Rewards
06 Nov 2012
Total posts 19
I've used Main Cabin Select many times and I love it. The food is not great, as it's just the snack menu that is available to everybody, but being able to order via Red and just have it turn up to your seat is so much better than waiting for the cart to come along and potentially missing it. The window shades thing is for cabin ambience (it's what one of the girls told me as I asked) and to keep the interior cool naturally while in hot locations. Delta do this as well.
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