Destination USA

America’s three major budget airlines—Southwest, JetBlue and Virgin America—are turning to map expansion and more perks to keep customers coming back. The expansion is help coastal residents since Boston got Virgina America service to the west coast in February, followed by JetBlue service. The notice came before Virgin America celebrated the summer by announcing fleet-wide Wireless Internet access, for pay.

The brainchild of serial entrepreneur Richard Branson, Virgin America now offers Gogo WiFi service for $12.95 for daytime flights of over three hours, $9.95 for daytime flights less than three hours and $5.95 on red-eye flights. But, the most recent addition saw the first to the game, Southwest, expand in the Northeast with service to New York’s LaGuardia airport and to Boston’s Logan, a welcomed addition for New England residents accustomed to trekking to Rhode Island for service. Southwest brings their community service commitment to NYC, according to a press release, which stated that it will clean up Flushing Meadows Park and will have some of its employees mentor kids at MS-8 New Prep Middle School in Queens.

Bonus: Would you take a flight without sitting? If sounds bizarre to you, take the poll Irish carrier Ryanair is holding. As pictured above, the airline is considering standing room, a move that Chinese Airline Spring Airlines, is also pushing for. While Ryanair is determining if customers would fly free if they had to stand, Spring Travel subsidiary Spring Airlines is seeking regulatory approval to add standing seats because of increased demand, mainly because of their low prices. Chinese TV network CCTV got the word from a company spokesperson that the standing seats would be resemble stools a href=”http://www.cctv.com/program/bizchina/20090626/108082.shtml” target=”_blank”>, but with safety belts. To learn more about Ryanair or to take the poll, click here to take the poll.

Where: For more information on Southwest, visit the Southwest website. For more information on Virgin America, visit the Virgin America website. For more information JetBlue (their JFK Terminal 5 is reason enough to fly!) visit JetBlue website.