Dear Virgin America: We've been waiting at the airport for my plane for 9 hours. Love, -Geoff

To any Virgin America customer service representative:

My colleagues and I are stranded at the airport. We're a group of business colleagues on our way across the country for business meetings. We should be sleeping soundly so that we're fresh and ready for a full day of meetings with a key client.

Instead, we are angry. We are cranky. We are delirious and delusional. We are pissed off.

Apparently one of your BRAND NEW planes had a faulty battery. Apparently the only replacement for that faulty battery was 300 miles and 9 hours away from our departure city.

Ok so before I complain too much, I do want to say that the gate agents were so nice and kept us up to date with as much information as was provided to them. They also did try to rebook everyone on the last plane of the evening, but we were three of the poor saps that didn't make it onto that plane.

But back to my complaining... We were forced to wait for Virgin America to figure out how to resolve the situation. Virgin America was not able to resolve the problem quickly or efficiently. So here are my questions:

Why was it that there weren't spare parts on hand and at the ready at one of your hub airports? Why was it that you flew in a spare part to an airport that's 40 minutes away from the airport where it's actually needed? How/why was the battery delivered to an airport that you don't even service? Why don't you make it common practice to provide more than a $10 voucher for stealing nine hours of our lives? And why is it a business traveler now knows so much about the intricacies of a Airbus A320 airplane battery? Really... Is this necessary?

We want our nine hours back. We want to see substance behind that suave facade. Before we book another flight with Virgin America again, we'll think twice about how much it's really worth.

Your potentially ex-customers,
-Geoff (and the two colleagues stranded with me)
Passengers on the ultra-delayed VA flight 462 and stranded at IAD for 8 hours and counting (on 7/22)