"Air Jamaica has announced a full-participation frequent flyer arrangement with Virgin Atlantic Airways to begin May 1, 2000", PR Newswire reported on April 26th (internet version copyrighted by Individual.com). The story continues that "This new partnership will allow Air Jamaica's 7th Heaven members to earn miles on all Virgin Atlantic flights. Members of 7th Heaven may either apply miles earned on Virgin for award travel on the UK-based carrier or convert miles earned on Virgin into Air Jamaica's acclaimed seven-flight based credit system, whereby members may earn award travel after seven round-trip flights. Conversely, Virgin Atlantic Flying Club members may apply miles earned on Virgin towards trips on Air Jamaica. "

This development can be regarded as a coup for Air Jamaica. Though small by comparison with companies like United or American, Virgin (based in Britain) has won a number of industry awards for the quality of its services. Also worthy of note is the fact that Virgin's parent company seems to be active in voluntary giving to support communities. This latter is meritorious of praise if it is a valid sign that the corporation has a comprehensive view of its long-term interests regarding the state of the world.

In a related story, on March 2nd Entertainment Wire reported that "Virgin Atlantic Airways has signed on as the first corporate founder of WORLD NEWS FOR PUBLIC TELEVISION. The London-based international news program, anchored by respected journalist Daljit Dhaliwal, is being underwritten by the British airline for one year, beginning March 1. ... 'We are delighted to have Virgin Atlantic Airways as a series underwriter,' said Ward Chamberlin, vice president, Thirteen/WNET New York. ... ' As a corporation, Virgin has a long history of philanthropy and has supported a variety of projects from education to child healthcare,' said David Tait, executive vice president, Virgin Atlantic Airways."

At Virgin's web site (www.virgin.com) we learn not only that the airline offers airport transfers ("From your door to the Terminal and back again, ...") but also special-priced vouchers usable in the National Express Coach service. Also interesting is a program called "New Virgins' Fly Without Fear ". "It's a one-day course running nearly every month, and course places are limited to 21 people to ensure you receive a more personal service. David Landau, a famous and very successful relaxation counsellor, with the help of Captain Norman Lees from Virgin Atlantic, will reassure you that flying is the safest form of transport. The relaxation session is conducted in our simulated aircraft (cabin trainer with exact dimensions of a Boeing 747) offering a realistic aircraft environment on the ground ­ we even provide an in-flight meal!"

The PR Newswire April 26 release continues that "To celebrate this new partnership with Virgin, Air Jamaica is offering double miles to all Virgin Flying Club members on all Air Jamaica flights between May 20 - July 20, 2000. In addition, every time passengers take a return trip on Air Jamaica during this period, they will be entered into a prize drawing to win one of four vacations packages to Jamaica and Grenada. Winners will receive a trip for two to either Round Hill Hotel and Villas in Jamaica or Rex Grenadian in Grenada, with round-trip airfare on Air Jamaica."

Air Jamaica now provides service from Atlanta, Baltimore/Washington, Chicago, Ft. Lauderdale, Los Angeles, Miami, Newark, New York (JFK), Orlando, Philadelphia, and Phoenix (beginning June 15, 2000). It also flies from London to Montego Bay and Kingston, and to Barbados, Bonaire, Grand Cayman, Dominica, Grenada, Havana, Cuba, Nassau, Bahamas, St. Lucia, St. Vincent, Trinidad and Tobago. "Air Jamaica provides more non-stop flights from its North American gateways to the Caribbean than any other carrier serving the region. In addition, the airline's code share agreement with Delta Air Lines, and its joint fare arrangements and compatible schedules with United, and other U.S. carriers, extend its access to over 150 cities within the Continental U.S."

Air Jamaica's web site (www.airjamaica.com) calls attention to a "Stop Over Free in Jamaica [Montego Bay] program". People going between other islands and Europe and North America may find in this program an opportunity to briefly 'sample the wares' at a nearby all-inclusive hotel for a night or so. Unfortunately, exactly what the program allows you to do is not in the web site text. You need to call your agent for the details.

WHAT ABOUT TRAVELER REVIEWS OF THESE TWO AIRLINES?

In the travel business it seems quite important to include travelers' perspectives in efforts to review the quality of a service. Unfortunately no one who is doing so with well-designed samples of travelers' views seems to be publishing their results for these two airlines. We are left with the comments of those who 'speak up' on the Internet, and those of journalists and guide-book writers.

As authoritative as the latter two might seem, they rarely involve decent samples of travelers' opinions, and are subject to serious biases just as much, in my opinion, as what you might read in the Usenet. We are, therefore, left with reviewing what can be found in the Usenet and trying to figure out what is the right size of the 'grain of salt' we should use to counter-balance what may in fact be seriously biased sampling of travelers' views.

Despite the great opportunity in the Usenet to create misleading images of the subjects under discussion, in this case Virgin Atlantic Airlines and Air Jamaica, the power of those images to influence people who read Usenet commentary is probably significant. This prospect is enhanced by the fact that Usenet discussion can be reviewed for many weeks after it was first created.

And so, with full concern about the potential to be misleading, here is a summary of recent Usenet discussion (since March 1, 2000) on Virgin Atlantic Airlines and Air Jamaica.

The samples of separate comments are very small (8 for Virgin and 12 for Air Jamaica). Five of the 8 review comments about Virgin were positive, and one was negative. The percentage is less relevant here (due to the tiny sample) than the overall 'tone' of the positive commentary. It was strongly positive , even up-beat. Also, the negative comment was not even close to a total put-down of Virgin. Despite sample size, this result may be consistent with Virgin having won a number of awards as a 'top airline' for service to clients.

Of the 12 comments found concerning Air Jamaica, only five are opinions that convey evaluations of experience with the airline (there are two questions, and five comments that are not applicable in the sense that they are in fact not remarks about the service offered by the airline). The remaining five comments break down into two positive, two negative and one neutral. There seems to be some usable content in the longest comments within two of these classes. Highlights from these comments follow:

POSITIVE:
Carleen -- " We use Air Jamaica most every time we go to the Caribbean. We wouldn't have it anyway. We pay the extra $75 (RT) to fly first class and it's worth. Service and food is very good. All their planes are newer. ... Only downside is they are sometimes prone to slight delays. ... When they first started their hub in MB, they were not too good. Since then (and we have used them 3 times since), they are slowly improving. ... The service and food is better than the domestic flights. And I still get my Delta FF miles using AJ."

NEGATIVE:
ITRADE -- "JM is prone to some awful delays - especially on the MBJ - U.S. side. From time to time you will go from a JM aircraft to a charter aircraft."

Again, we emphasize that the available sample of comments is embarrassingly small to support any sort of summary, and we offer one only in the belief that some traveler commentary is needed to counter-balance the 'official line' you will get from the service providers. If more substantial threads turn up on Air Jamaica we will report a similar summary.

One reaction to my singling out for highlight the strongly negative comment about delays would be to claim that this passenger has an unfortunate sample of experience that is not representative of Air Jamaica's overall performance. Fair ball! It would be nice to add to that reaction some hard statistics on the airline's 'on-time performance'. Putting those statistics on the Usenet should be helpful for Air Jamaica. It needs to remembered that the statement quoted is already available to all on the Usenet.

In fact, even IF Air Jamaica's 'on -time record' has been below average, the mere demonstration, in hard data, that it is improving (as the positive comment cited above claims) and that management is really pushing hard to bring about the improvements would cast a good light on the airline. It is well known that North American carriers have made a 'big deal' about improving 'on-time performance', at least in some of their advertising. It is a good bet that the traveling public has become sensitive to this issue.

By the way, since the evidence here is so skimpy, any one who wishes to challenge my ratings can send me a message (lestone@arawak.net) to get my copy of the detailed comments. There are two pertinent threads for Virgin, and they are both to be found in the rec.travel.air newsgroup . I have preserved them in a DejaNews Forum. Click here ( Deja.com message: British or Virgin to London? ) to get to the first thread in DejaNews, and here ( Deja.com message: Re: Virgin Flight From LGW To Orlando Int.) to get to the second one. The RemarQ™ Travel Forum has thread on Air Jamaica in an easy to read format. -- click here to see it.

Finally, in addition to the Forum sources cited above, credits for sources for this article are also due to Individual.com news service (www.individual.com). A serious effort has been made here to respect peoples' copyrights. Any lingering violation will be corrected promptly, as soon as someone points out where the violation takes place. Contact me at lestone@arawak.net.

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