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EtherealStrife
August 2, 2007 3:48 AM
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WOW! I'm not a fan of the purple, but I love that interface. Hopefully this takes a chunk out of the whole industry's profits. Greedy bastards need some classy (ignoring the purple) competition to drive up cs and drive down prices.

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Buran
August 2, 2007 7:56 AM
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Looks nice, definitely catering to the geek set, and I don't mind the purple (but why is the exterior livery red?). I'd consider them if the prices aren't outrageous, except I bet St. Louis will be bypassed ... again.

However, it's an Airbus -- the aircraft that allows a pilot to be overridden by a computer. This is problematic at times -- that crash in South America recently may have been caused in part by the computers thinking the pilot was trying to take off and refusing to allow the spoilers to be deployed. Ooops.

Boeing, in contrast, does not allow the computer to make the final decision and puts the human in command.

\"If it ain't Boeing, I'm not going\" all over again? maybe.

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jburland
August 2, 2007 2:11 PM
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@Buran:

\"that crash in South America may have been caused\"

May also have been caused by a combination of runway contamination, an inoperative thrust reverser, not setting thrust levers to Idle in timely manner, resulting in the non-deployment of the spoilers and subsequent degraded deceleration performance......
The operative word is \"may\"

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Kurtz
August 2, 2007 3:19 PM
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Remember that Virgin America and Virgin Atlantic are not the same airline. A lot of people think that they'll get all the amenities of Virgin Atlantic on Virgin America. I thought the same thing when I flew Virgin Blue in Australia. Sure enough, they were available to me - for a price. Want to use the in flight entertainment? Better have a credit card. Water? That'll be $3. Coffee? $4. Bag of peanuts? $5. I'm hoping Virgin America will be different, but it could turn out to be Jet Blue without the complimentary drinks and snacks.

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shoegazer
August 2, 2007 4:14 PM
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@Kurtz: Be aware that Branson is willing to take a loss on Virgin America for at least three years before upping fares, so I'm betting he'll pull out all the stops to suck up the market share and then cut back on amenities later on.

I've played Super Mario 3 on the Singapore Airline IFAs since, like, forever. Give me 45 degree pitch, hot meals and a footrest in coach, and I'm happy.

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