Virgin Goes Vegas

It's a lousy economic time, as seen once again today by Benjamin Spillman's piece in the R-J about how desperate Vegas hoteliers are to virtually give away rooms this holiday weekend. So here's some happier news: A new airline is kicking off new service to Vegas!

Richard Branson's Virgin America airline starts daily non-stops from LAS to JFK on Sept. 4 with a media event that includes a premiere showing of the first episode of the fifth season of the HBO hit "Entourage" on the inaugural flight from New York to Vegas. That's nice for the NY media, but kinda lame for those of us here! Boo!

Here's part of the press release about the planes and an image of the A320's cabin:

Virgin America's brand new planes feature moodlighting, custom-designed leather seats, and individual touch-screen entertainment systems with movies, videogames and now for the first time -- episodes of Entourage offered free of charge during the initial month of the partnership.

Sadly, the service doesn't seem to be all that reasonably priced. I just checked on fares for a trip we'd like to take to NY in December and the cheapest I could find was $438 roundtrip plus taxes. The same dates and routes, Continental, JetBlows, American, Delta and US Scare all had cheaper nonstops.

Has anyone out there taken Virgin America? Are there any special characteristics to this airline that we ought to know about, that make the higher prices worthwhile?

Steve Fossett: The Podcast (w/ Richard Branson!)

OK, so we didn't do a regular show this week. We've got something better.

We just put together a special edition that features parts of my interviews that include details and discussions that didn't make it into my coverage. The whole 45-minute show includes chats with:

* Sir Richard Branson, Virgin mogul and friend/financier of Fossett
* Ex-CBOT chairman Patrick Arbor, friend/adventure pal of Fossett
* A choice piece of press briefing from Civil Air Patrol's Cynthia Ryan
* Chat with Gary Derks, spokesman for the NV Division of Emergency Management.

Click here to hear it or right-click here to download it and listen to it at your leisure. Or, as you ought to, subscribe to "The Strip" via iTunes by clicking here.

A Productive Trip Indeed

Figured I'd list the links to the rest of my work from the Fossett trip:

* NYT: Profile of the Flying M Ranch. For print and online on 9/8.
* NYT: Interview with Sir Richard Branson interview on Fossett. For online on 9/7.
* Las Vegas Weekly: Column on Fossett, Nevada and conspiracies. Posted 9/7.
* Wired News: A geeky look at the technology employed in the search. Posted 9/7.
* KNPR: I was interviewed by Michael Squires for "State of Nevada" on Fossett. Aired 9/7.

I plan to listen to my recorded audio on Saturday and decide what might be worth putting out as a podcast. Not sure if there's that much interest or not.

Frampton, Fossett, Forbes and Friess

Amid all the rest of what I'm doing here, I am interviewing Peter Frampton this morning for an upcoming episode of "The Strip" podcast. And here's the weirdest thing: In doing my research for this chat last night, I noticed that Frampton and Fossett share a birthday, April 22. Now what the hell are the odds of that? Almost as strange as the experience of leaving messages with a reasonably confused secretary from Steve Friess for Steve Forbes about his pal Steve Fossett, perhaps?

Keep watch on this space. We should be publishing some new Fossett details I learned from Sir Richard Branson this morning on the Times site and I'll alert when that happens. Meanwhile, here's my piece in the Times today.