I’m writing this while flying just east of the North Carolina coast at 30,998 feet. I know that because I’m on Song, Delta’s airline within an airline.
Song is supposed to be an airline that can compete with the discount independents like Southwest and JetBlue. My round trip fare to Florida, $116.70¹ is certainly a bargain.
The plane itself is a pretty pedestrian Boeing 757. It is configured as a one class with 3+3 seating. The color scheme is blue and a muted light green. The flight attendants wear designer outfits from Kate Spade (or possibly her husband, I can’t remember).
The pre-flight briefing was done by a recorded voice. She was over the top sultry with an over the top script to read. I presume it’s part of Song’s positioning.
On the back of each seat is an LCD touch screen. Once the plane is in the air, the screen controls individual channels of entertainment (movies, live satellite TV, music, a trivia game or flight tracking).
I like the idea of live TV while flying. It works pretty well, though not perfectly. As we were taking off and the plane made some turns, we lost the signal. Every time an announcement is made or someone hits a call button, the TV audio stops.
People hit the call button more often than you’d think!
I like the idea of a TV, but the flight’s half over and I’m not watching. I’m playing the music trivia game – fighting it out with whoever’s in 15F.
The monitor itself is wider than a normal TV. The broadcasts that are seen are stretched to fit, so everyone looks a little heavier… a little dumpier. As someone who is on TV, this bothers me. It probably won’t bother you as much.
If my two checked bags are out on time, I’ll consider Song a success.
¹ – the $116.70 fare includes $25.54 in tax leaving $91.16 for the airline.
I flew TED (United’s airline within an airline) to Las Vegas a few months ago and was extremely impressed. It was a new airbus, and the seating was excellent (3 + 3 config, but about 3 feet between seats!). Seriously, the non-competitive bigger airlines had better watch out, there’s some serious competition out there now!
On the subject of 16:9 vs 4:3 – it seems that no one really gets that over here. I’m from the UK and we’ve had 16:9 format for years on terrestrial analogue, terrestrial DVB and celestial DVB. Here it’s branded as HDTV and I still dont think that many of the broadcasters (nor people in the home) realise that there is actually a format shift, and you dont just “stretch the picture to fit”!!!
Oh well, that’s progress for you!
Heck ~ I’m just glad most airlines don’t have the tacky seating fabric designs that HURT my eyes for so many years. Especialy hard to take on those 6 to 14 hour flights! Heaven help if they start allowing cell phones all the time 🙁
~ The cell phone HATER