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Don't Lower Your Expectations
- ikeboy 9y agoShort and to the point. I like it.
- SallySwanSmith 9y agoSadly I'm forced to lower my expectations when Virgin America was sold to Alaska :(
- brogrammernot 9y agoI've never had a poor experience on Alaska. They're my preferred carrier when going to SEA. What don't you like about them?
- losteric 9y agoSome people are just irrationally biased against mergers - on my last flight, the couple next to me could not stop blaming the merger for us leaving SFO 5 minutes late, even when we arrived at SEA on time. It was Friday at 7PM, heavy travel time for SFO-SEA. I try to fly Alaska everywhere too - never had a bad experience, on-time every time.
- tsunamifury 9y agoUgly old planes, sub par soft and hard product. Walmart level quality brand etc. the basics work, but everything else is crap. Virgin was he king of American airline quality and raised the bar for the whole industry.
- seizethecheese 9y agoThey're aggressively updating their planes. My last couple of flights have been on brand new ones.
- Aloha 9y agoThe oldest part of their fleet are B734's of which they have 5 (plus I think some Combi's which only service Alaska) all of those are due to be gone by the end of 2017. The rest of their fleet is B737/B738/B739's - all but 30 are B738/B739's. 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.
- losteric 9y agoYour first paragraph sums up my experience with Virgin. Hollow flimsy plastic walls, useless seatback displays, uncomfortable seats, tacky college dorm mood lights, horrid customer service, heck most flights don't even offer snacks... I try to avoid them whenever possible.
- ouid 9y agoIt is not irrational to be biased against mergers. The couple seated next to you were just dumb.
- brightball 9y agoAlaska and Delta are my favorite airlines by a mile. Quality and reliability every time.
- SallySwanSmith 9y agoTo be entirely fair, a lot of my grief is based on my experience transitioning my frequent flier miles from virgin to Alaska. They had some sort of fault and I lost 250k miles and Alaska wouldn't do anything to correct the error. They kept saying that the system said I had zero miles even though I was able to show on virgin's site that they showed I had 250k at the time it was extracted for the move. It really soured me on them.
- brogrammernot 9y agoThat's a completely fair reason. That happened to me on a lesser scale with American and US Airways (I also lost all of my miles from America West from when I would fly back/forth to visit my father lol thanks airlines). Totally sucks, especially 250k miles. I'd be weary after that as well.
- pacaro 9y agoHere's an anecdote. My wife, flying first class, specified when purchasing the ticket that she is vegan; the meal they provided: a banana.
- tomjakubowski 9y agoAlaska has always been my preferred airline for travel to Seattle and hops up and down the west coast. They aren't as "quirky" as Virgin, but, compared to the other legacy carriers, they get most of the little things right and (IME) have excellent customer service, vegan banana meal anecdote notwithstanding.
- dasil003 9y agoTo paraphrase Merlin Mann: that's fine for Richard Branson.
- omot 9y agoRichard Branson is such an inspiration for me. A billionaire with dyslexia who would've thought!
- micahbright 9y agoSo 250 times the debt? Sounds like a deal :/
- ams6110 9y agoBank loan to outfit airplanes with seatback video -- easy "no" for the bank, it's dependent on the airline's ability to repay, with little recourse if the can't. 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.
- micahbright 9y ago>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?
- emerongi 9y agoHow did you arrive at that??
- micahbright 9y agoIf you can't follow a thread, don't comment.
- pbhjpbhj 9y agoSurely then as a canny banker you offer to give them the money for the entertainments system secured against whatever assets they have, like the aircraft (if there are no liens or whatever on them). Indeed isn't that classic banking, if you know they're likely to default on the loan you offer it anyway but with security against anything they've got that you want transferring all the risk as a means for asset acquisition? >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.
- bruceb 9y agoSomewhat related. On the Pitch podcast a guy pitching VR headsets on planes said those seat back entertainment systems are heavy and cost the airlines $1b a year in fuel costs. https://gimletmedia.com/episode/skylights-s02-ep04/ https://gimletmedia.com/episode/skylights-s02-ep04/ Company: http://www.skylights.aero/ http://www.skylights.aero/
- mahyarm 9y agoI would think nowadays they should be lightweight android tablets and a small 10 lbs media/wifi server box
- untog 9y agoVR on a plane sounds interesting. But those headsets are pretty bulky right now, I wouldn't want to be juggling one along with food and everything else. 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.
- tomjakubowski 9y agoMany of those in-flight entertainment systems are Android tablets mounted onto the seatback. Sometimes if you're lucky you can bail out to the Android home screen on them.
- ricardobeat 9y agoSource? I doubt they would embed lithium batteries into the seats, and every device I've seen so far is powered on/off along with airplane systems.
- brianwawok 9y agoYou could both be an android tablet and run off a plug and not have a battery...
- grahamburger 9y ago
- madengr 9y agoSo would a seat back video investment been worth it, considering now they are obsoleted by smartphones? 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.
- bruceb 9y agoPhones are not bigger than seatback systems. Do people have the time or remember to load movies ? Make sure their device is charged? Seatback systems may not be great but they might be good enough to last a while longer.
- derwiki 9y agoOn United flights, you can use your smartphone/tablet to connect to wifi and stream their movies for free. I guess charging is still an issue.
- lotsofpulp 9y agoThe newer planes all have charging ports with sufficient power for mobile devices. United's streaming option, especially with the Amazon partnership seems like the way forward.
- OscarTheGrinch 9y agoLord help the next passenger using that port after Samy Kamkar has his way with it.
- lotsofpulp 9y agoHah, it's usually a power outlet that I plug my USB adapter into.
- 9y ago
- user5994461 9y agoThat sounds right for her diet.
- DerpyBaby123 9y agoThat is rude and uncalled for.
- jcoffland 9y agoHow is that rude? You can't get around the fact that bananas are vegan.
- gasof 9y ago"Perhaps you'd feel different if you were served a big sausage." - if this were Reddit. 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.
- brianwawok 9y agoWait, so its not PC to give people bananas anymore because it resembles a part of a male? This is absurd.
- gasof 9y agoTo me it was the terse wording that gave rise to the implication, combined with that a banana isn't a meal. "Sounds right for HER diet." That part was not meant as a critique of the airline.
- pacaro 9y agoThe question is not whether a banana is vegan, but whether it constitutes a meal. In particular, think of this in the context of the customer experience.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- kornakiewicz 9y agoI often find the stoic approach ("don't have external expectations") as one, which makes me less stressed and able to make better decisions. On the other hand I try to aim high and achieve more. So it's basically this subtle tension between both, what works best for me. Choosing only one option probably would make me either lazy and stagnating, or stressed and miserable.
- Aloha 9y agoThis is a great philosophy. I've found much success in divorcing my goals from my expectations.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- dwaltrip 9y agoThis somewhat paradoxical approach that you describe has become enormously important to me over the past few years. 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.
- bigzen 9y agoDo you have any recommendations for books regarding stoicism? I'd like to learn more.
- vborovikov 9y agoHere is a great summary of A Guide to the Good Life: http://becomingeden.com/summary-of-a-guide-to-the-good-life/ http://becomingeden.com/summary-of-a-guide-to-the-good-life/
- bdibs 9y agoI’m not the original poster, but I recommend Meditations by Marcus Aurelius highly. 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).
- _jal 9y agoI hate seat-back video on planes. I really, really don't need some flickering screen a foot from my face for hours on end. My only interaction with them is whacking the off-button until it finally acquiesces. 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.
- Noumenon72 9y agoEven other people's seatback videos are distracting. Negative innovation for me.
- CamperBob2 9y agoInstructions unclear. How do I get Boeing to build a dozen 747s for me, right after a bank refuses to lend me a measly $10 million? 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.
- micahbright 9y agoBoeing has more incentive than the bank. Boeing's profit is likely much higher than the interest on the deal. That's probably just the cherry on top. The bank stands to lose the entire principal.
- pbhjpbhj 9y agoHow can they afford to make payments on a £2.5B loan but not have £10M? At 5% interest over 10 years that's a £26M monthly payment; how did that work?
- avn2109 9y agoBecause they used the 2.5 billion to buy planes which they used to make money.
- pbhjpbhj 9y agoThey were already making money with the planes they had, realistically they can't suddenly make £10s of millions more just because they have replaced those with new planes. They can buy/set up new routes but that's going to be more cost. 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??
- sjg007 9y agoYes it's a spin by Branson to suggest that the planes were the solution to seat back entertainment. They'd have done the planes anyway because it's grow or die. 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.
- otterley 9y agoInvestors are much more likely to lend you lots of money when the debt is secured. Airplanes are pretty good securities against default; they don't depreciate quickly. If you default on your payments, the airplanes will be repossessed and the creditors will get most of their money back. 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.