Virgin Set to Reinvent US Air Travel With (Social) Media and Technology

Last week Virgin announced the newest business they will try to reinvent, now that they finally have their long awaited approval in the US to start a new domestic airline. Features include:

• Enable traveller's gadgetized lifestyles. Every seat has a power plug for laptops, USB chargers for MP3 players, and will eventually have built in ethernet for internet access. For longer coast to coast flights, this ensures that no matter which class of service you are travelling in, you will never run out of batteries on your device.


• Virgin America has an online ordering system where you can order your food and pay through a cashless system (also removing the need to carry around cash or exact change).


• One of the saddest parts of travelling sometimes is that you can sit next to someone for 6 hours or more and never speak. The greater tragedy is that there may be other people on the plane hungry for a good conversation, but simply sitting next to the wrong people. Built into the back of seat console is something Virgin calls a "seat to seat chat." Presumably, it only works for passengers who put their seats into "discoverable" modes, but a very cool idea nonetheless.

http://dmwmedia.com/news/2007/07/23/analysis-virgin-america-will-reinvent-us-air-travel-with-social-media-and-more