Virgin America’s New App Lets You Book a Flight in 60 Seconds
A Virgin America plane lands at San Francisco International Airport.
The app’s official release takes place later this summer, but users can sign up to test the beta version.
2015 RCA winner Virgin America boasts fleet-wide Wi-Fi, sleek mood lighting, seat-to-seat chat functionality, individual touch-screens streaming Netflix, and more—basically, it had all the accoutrements of an airline befitting its tech-heavy home base, San Francisco. Today the airline upped its game by unveiling a new mobile app for iOS and Android, which lets you book a flight in less than a minute, check in (and upgrade) with a fingertip, and conjure up dedicated Spotify playlists curated for each destination. While the official release takes place later this summer, users can now sign up to test the beta version.
“We’ve always been different from other airlines, and we created an app that’s worthy of our guests,” Vice President and CMO Luanne Calvert tells Condé Nast Traveler, pointing to the airline’s collaboration with Spotify as an example of making the in-flight experience more fun—and seamless.
The app, decked out in the carrier’s palette of black, lavender, and pink, performs all the expected tasks: book flights, check in, create boarding passes, and push notifications like gate changes—all with whimsical touches like custom avatars and illustrations by London’s Build creative agency. The boarding pass, for instance, features animations set against the destination’s skyline.
“We wanted to keep things super minimal, but also with warmth,” says the app’s co-designer Joe Stewart, a principal at Work & Co. “We balanced very clear interfaces with a sense of joy and celebration.”
Long gone are the days when apps served as hollow portals for the airlines’ websites. Today, developers are building a new generation of airline apps from the ground up to be responsive to all screen sizes and operating systems, many with exclusive features: United Airlines’ app now lets you enjoy in-flight entertainment on your personal device, while the Delta app lets you track your bag real-time from check-in to carousel. Virgin America plans to add functions in later releases, so if you want to give your two cents, sign up to take the app for a spin. No seatbelt required.
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