We had just finished playing a virtual scavenger hunt in the air against another jet full of reporters and other passengers, found out we had won laptop computers for our efforts and a Fox news reporter led some of us in live-TV cheers like trained monkeys. So it was a pretty festive atmosphere when one woman stalked up the aisle demanding to talk to someone in charge.

Unfortunately, a Google representative said she was, not knowing what she was in for. The woman was near livid.

“I bought my ticket last night for $1,300 and I wasn’t aware they were going to be playing games on this flight, and now we’re just circling the airport. I have a connecting flight to New York to catch because of a family emergency. This isn’t right,” she said.

A Virgin Airlines representative dashed up to rescue the woman from Google and help the passenger.

“I’m about to call Virgin and demand my money back,” she said.

Turns out she had a death in the family. Everyone felt bad, of course. Especially Virgin. The company, with Google, had staged a stunt Wednesday with Internet computer games to show off the airline’s new Wi-Fi service. This kind of publicity you don’t need. But I think they felt bad on a personal level too. When I talked to the Virgin representatives afterward in San Francisco Airport you could see how badly they felt for the woman. In fact, they comped her ticket and the representative I talked to went right to the pilot and asked him to land the jet as soon as possible, which he did.

Because of poor weather in Boston the woman’s flight was delayed so it appeared she’d make her connection after all.

And this little hiccup came after we spent a good portion of the beginning of the flight just trying to log on to the Internet. Virgin officials blame the problem on Gogo, its Internet provider, and a technical issue with the log-ins. Other flights with multiple people on the server did not run into problems accessing the web, they say. On the flight back to LAX today I had good access to the Internet. Sure, it wasn’t as good as the office, but you’re above the clouds, hurtling along and there are dozens of others on the same network so it’s a miracle it works at all.

This is such a godsend. I, for one, would gladly pay the $12.95 to access the Internet on a flight to, say, Chicago or New York. Those flights are long and it would be excellent to catch up on e-mail or to surf the news to bide my time. Virgin also offers TV, music and even chat rooms. So there are multiple ways to occupy your time on those long flights. I’d offer one note, though. As fine as the music selection is, how can you not include any Sarah Vaughan? I know, that’s nitpicky, but I’m a big fan and I figured they might listen. After all, Richard Branson likes to say the key to success is customer service and I think they proved that today.

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