Don't Lower Your Expectations
virgin.com
virgin.com
I've found much success in divorcing my goals from my expectations.
It leaves me excited for the future as I explore the possibilities that life may provide, but very grounded and aware of the immense fragility.
As a spec on a tiny ball of dirt floating in space, I shouldn't be surprised when the wind knocks me over. But I should at least try to get back up, as it seems there are many interesting things and meaningful experiences out there awaiting me.
I’d also check out A Guide to the Good Life by William Irvine, it’s an overview and a much less tedious read (wrote this century, haha).
The operating time of a plane is way longer than infotainment equipment.
That's why I won't buy cars with nav systems, etc. I'll still be driving that car in 10 year, while the infotainment will be obsolete and unsupported. All I car for in a car is a way to amplify what's coming out of my phone.
Seatback systems may not be great but they might be good enough to last a while longer.
I'm not sure how prevalent it is, but I know some carriers like United[1] and Delta[2] (via Gogo) stream media to your personal device over the aircraft's WiFi.
> Make sure their device is charged?
Many flights now have USB ports and/or power outlets under the seats.
[1]: https://www.united.com/web/en-US/content/travel/inflight/ent...
[2]: https://www.delta.com/content/www/en_US/traveling-with-us/on...
The wifi is decent - I was able to stream 480p video without interruptions, which is way better than I expected.
> This free service gives you access to a library of movies and TV shows that you can watch on your personal laptop, Apple iOS device or Android device.
The USB ports are nice; especially since I have a syncstop so don't have to trust them. The video, however, is only available through their United App (Not even the Gogo Video app, available on a few other carriers, but the United one is required to play videos on their flights). Okay, so I went to download it. You can't on the flight - They block internet unless you pay for it ($15 for my two-hour flight! Though I could have gotten a half hour for $10), but I had a layover, so I downloaded it in the terminal. I was taken aback - It wanted access to my contacts, my phone information, my text messages - Well, thankfully Google has profiles on tablets, so I loaded up my burner profile.
But actually on the flight, the experience was horrible. The video constantly stopped to buffer. There were no media controls - You pressed play, and you could pause the video by tapping the screen, but you couldn't scrub back or forward or restart the video. The selection was okay - I watched some Lego Freemaker Adventures (I'm a sucker for the lego animations, and Star Wars, how could I resist?) but there were a variety of movies that I'd have watched instead. I gave up, though, after my second layover I went to boot up the episode I'd been halfway through on my previous flight, and it started over. I don't blame it for starting over... but the lack of media controls made that a non-starter.
Ultimately, streaming to personal devices (with rental tablets available) is going to be the clear winner; The expense of maintaining those headrest units has got to be significantly more than the little media server on in-flight wifi, and the complaints I have about privacy invasion are yet another sacrifice that airlines are all too willing to make on our behalf. But it's not there yet, and I sorta doubt it will be for a while yet.
$10 Million in 90's money is like $18 Mil now [1](according to this site i don't fully beleive). $2.5 Bil = $4.5 Bil. That's a lot of money to keep the kids happy.
[0]https://www.virgin.com/travel/how-has-inflight-entertainment...
[1]http://www.in2013dollars.com/1991-dollars-in-2017?amount=100...
Kids eventually grow up and buy plane tickets of their own.
Company: http://www.skylights.aero/
I'm surprised these AV systems haven't been replaced by cheap Android tablets - they'd be a hell of a lot cheaper and you could replace them very easily.
The bigger risk today is Wow! and norweigan airlines with cheap flights.
But I've always found virgin to be a good experience for a fair price. On transatlantic flights, BA is more expensive for less and the American carriers are just awful. They get away with it because their hub-spoke routes have little competition.
They only way I see it working is something with investors, but how does that work with a public company, surely not a new share class?
Most likely option I see is that this is mainly spin from Branson??
Seat-back monitors, on the other hand, are nearly worthless after installation. They're tied to the planes they're in; the technology obsoletes quickly; and they can't easily be resold. So the risk to the creditor in percentage terms is much greater.
So, indeed, in absolute terms, there's more at stake for the creditors (10M vs 2.5B), but if I were a creditor, I know what I'd feel safer betting on.
Sure, they can repossess the aircraft if I default, but that's going to cost them a lot more than $10M by the time the dust settles. On the surface, this is really a story of arbitrage, where Branson successfully leveraged Boeing's recklessness against a bank's cowardice.
What don't you like about them?
I try to fly Alaska everywhere too - never had a bad experience, on-time every time.
Virgin was he king of American airline quality and raised the bar for the whole industry.
In fact among legacy carriers Alaska has the youngest fleet age of any of them. Alaska also has excellent on-time and baggage performance - among the best, if not the best in the industry.
Totally sucks, especially 250k miles. I'd be weary after that as well.
Boeing financing sale or lease of 12 new aircraft? Easy yes -- the aircraft is an asset generating revenue for them, and can be repossessed if Virgin doesn't make the payments.
Same reason that a person who can't get a $5,000 unsecured personal loan at a bank can often finance a $50,000 new car.
So borrowing money and living outside of your means is now a success story?
>a person who can't get a $5,000 unsecured personal loan at a bank //
Of course but they can have any loan they like secured against their house or [expensive] car up to half it's outstanding sale value ... though I think they are now being regulated on this sort of thing, which was the root of the whole sub-prime deal-e-o I think.
Vaguely implying cock was rude, and it sucks that vegans tend to get offered slabs of Gouda in place of meals. A banana doesn't even come close to a lunch, that's like offering an omnivore a piece of beef jerky.
This is absurd.
That part was not meant as a critique of the airline.
In particular, think of this in the context of the customer experience.
Source: vegan friends.
http://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/banana-g...
From a strictly selfish point of view, the only positive feature I can think of is that they can hypnotize some (but not all) children who would otherwise be annoying.