Triangle Trip

I have been commuting coast to coast for over 10 years – that’s between New York and California. I have flown out of JFK to LAX and SFO months at a time. There were only two carriers back in the 90s… now we’ve five options:

1. American
2. Delta
3. JetBlue
4. United
5. Virgin Ameirca

I have experienced all carriers and want to share my experience with everyone. Here are the plus’s and minuses for each:

1. American:

PLUSES:  Price – usually cheaper than Delta and UA. Coach seats are pretty roomy vs. the other four.

MINUSES:  The AA terminal at JFK is a zoo. Planes are older.

2. Delta

PLUSES:  Price – usually cheaper than UA. New seats inside the plane – leather. Live TV in coach. If you’re a Medallion Gold or Platinum, 80% chance to be upgraded to First.

MINUSES:  If you buy a low fare ticket, you will not get full mileage in your bank. Skyteam points are not as valuable as Star Alliance or OneWorld.

3. JetBlue

PLUSES:  Newer planes. Flights are cheap. Free live TV. Food for sale is decent.

MINUSES:  Have to fly to OAK or SJC vs. SFO. Long Beach or Burbank vs. LAX. No first class upgrades.

4. United

PLUSES:  Star Alliance points and UA offers 100% on all flights regardless of the price of tickets. JFK terminal is extremely clean. If upgraded to buniess, service is awesome – personal DVD player, plugs on all business class seats, etc.

MINUSES:  UA divided plane into 50% business, 50% coach. As a result, there are not that many seats available for sale in coach. Tickets are generally expensive.

5. Virgin Ameirca

PLUSES:  Plugs on all seats, games and TV on your seats, comfortable throughout the cabin, ticket can be pretty cheap as well.

MINUSES:  Limited flights throughout the day. Can only bank Virgin points.

Summary

In summary, you should fly Delta if you have Medallion status as you will get upgraded. Fly United if you have enough points to spend on the upgrades. Go with Jetblue if you’re cost conscious or don’t mind flying to alternative airports.

I flew my first flight on Virgin America on Halloween, and I was pleased.  Virgin America only goes to certain cities, and luckily, my destination was one of the, San Francisco (SFO) to Las Vegas (LAS).  I usually go Southwest, but suprisingly the cost was the same, so I decided to give VA a shot.  Being a normal airline, you choose your own seat, which I much prefer than standing in line of Southwest to fight for a seat.

Since VA is relatively new, it is located in the International terminal at SFO.  The adventure began as my girlfriend and I shuttled to the International terminal from long term parking.  The International terminal is actually the last stop of the shuttle, but if you want, you can walk from Terminal 1 to International terminal, and I decided to do that to see how long it was, since we were early.  It wasn’t too bad, maybe a 5 minute walk, up some escalators.

Inevitably the flight was delayed, as all airlines were delayed out of SFO with the mist and clouds.  No blame on the airline, in fact, they actually made up for it by hosting some "events" to pass the time..  I took part in some soccer, thats right they actually had a little net, and a small soccer ball where were did a shootout.   They gave free drink vouchers and/or free seat upgrades to the winners.  Being Halloween, there were tons of people in costume, one even in a hot dog suit.  I’m not exactly sure how he fit in his seat later, but that was pretty amusing.

The airplane was a new plane for sure, they had the touchscreen displays on the back of every seat.  This was probably the coolest part of the trip, and something I enjoy.  I hear they have this is a lot of international airlines, but this is the first time I’ve seen one. There is a selection of a dozen movies, and a lot of different tv shows you can choose from. Most of the time I just listened to the selection of music they had because the shows were kind of choppy.

Overall, I had a good experience with Virgin America and I would fly them again if the prices are good to my third home, Las Vegas.