Well, Virgin American certainly has their demographic targeted. The hip startup airline just announced that they're teaming up with HBO's Entourage to christen one of their their Airbus aircraft "Entourage Air" and kick off service between New York's JFK and Las Vegas.

Yes, this is the same group that also hosted Victoria's Secret models on one of their transcontinental routes.

Next Thursday the airline plans to host an Entourage party at a private JFK hangar with members of the Entourage crew (no specifics on whether this is going to be some B character or some of the stars), Richard Branson and other celebs for a pre launch party with Dom Perignon Champagne, hors d'oeuvres and other themed goodies.

In flight, passengers will be treated to a special pre screening of the hit HBO show and the airline will kick off special HBO features for all passengers flying on VA for the duration of the month. Later, HBO and VA plan on collaborating in other projects on the airline's advanced inflight entertainment system.

Naturally, the party finishes off at the Playboy Club in the Palms Casino.

Truly, a magnificent introduction to a route. But will it pay off? Virgin America bills itself as the hip, edgy airline that more often than not is slightly more expensive than the competition. Can their image and inflight amenities sway you over from a legacy carrier?

As Grant reported earlier this month, JetBlue is in the final stages of construction for its brand new home at Terminal 5 of New York's JFK airport. This morning Gadling had the chance to take a sneak peak of the new facilities in advance of the building's official opening on October 1st.

Although there's still much to be accomplished in the next 6 weeks, the building is already shaping up as a winner. JetBlue has built a showpiece home for its growing brand - a building that in many ways looks poised to usher travelers into a new era of domestic air travel. It was equally refreshing to find a totally new (dare I say revolutionary?) approach to the airport culinary and concession experience - one that is sure to please the palates of picky New Yorkers and fellow travelers from across the U.S.

With a project this ambitious, JetBlue has also built themselves very high expectations for their new terminal's success both in the press and with their passengers. But as we saw with the opening of London Heathrow's new British Airways terminal earlier this year, there are inevitably some kinks that need to be worked out. Here's hoping everything goes smoothly for JetBlue at launch.

So what exactly did we find during our visit? Follow the link below to get the full overview, and make sure to check out our gallery too for the full Terminal 5 experience.

Manhattan is a great place to find the best of something. Best theater, best food, best art -- and definitely best shopping, as long as you've got some padding in your bank account. One of the greatest places for a girl to shop in Manhattan is on 47th St between 5th and 6th Avenues, also known as the Diamond District.

New York's Diamond District is a full city block of sparkly goodness, and whether you want to buy or just gawk, this is the place to come for fine jewelry. With over 2,600 independent businesses in the Diamond District (seriously!), you have no excuse not to shop around. If you get a bad vibe from someone, stay away -- you have plenty of other options. Some jewelers have shops of their own, but most operate booths in large jewelry exchanges, which can have hundreds of different vendors all under one roof.

If you want to have a good experience and not get ripped off, start by dressing the part. The more money it looks like you've got, the more attention you'll get. And the more knowledgeable you appear, the less likely you'll be ripped off. Don't just throw around buzz words, though. Diamond vendors can tell when you're just regurgitating some pamphlet on the four C's. If you want to really know your stuff, take a good look at the Personal Gemologist series at AisleDash. Learn how to tell quality from crap. If a vendor describes something in terms you don't understand, don't buy it. While you may be looking at a very pretty ring, you may be buying a synthetic stone, or artificially enhanced piece of jewelry. Find more helpful shopping tips on the Diamond District website here.

Lastly, it's not in the Diamond District, but your Manhattan jewelry experience isn't complete until you visit Tiffany & Co, located at 57th St & 5th Ave.

JetBlue's new terminal at JFK opens up on October first, and the airline is making sure to run it's operations through the gauntlet before going live. We all remember what happened in Heathrow's T5 earlier this year when they didn't test their operations thoroughly enough: thousands of passengers and their luggage were separated and stranded, resulting in unruly passengers, thousands of complaints and an embarrased British Airports Authority.

To help simulate life in the fully operational T5, the New York City based airline has invited passengers to take the terminal on a dry run on August 23rd. That morning, over a thousand True Blue frequent flyers will converge on the terminal in a mock booking. Upon arriving at the airport they'll be divided into groups and instructed on their roles -- for example, four random people may be put together, given "luggage" and assigned an "itinerary" heading to Las Vegas.

Passengers will then go about as normal, checking in at the kiosks, sending their luggage through the system, going through the active TSA checkpoint and going as far as the gate before the simulation ends. Then, they'll do it in reverse as if just arriving from their destination.

The trial is meant to test the opertion of the entire integrated teminal. As JetBlue spokesman Bryan Baldwin mentioned earlier to Gadling today, each of the systems have been tested independently, but the true trial will be under operating conditions with real passengers -- which is what they want to create on August 23rd.

For their time, passengers will be awarded with JetBlue branded goodie bags, be fed and several may even win a flight or two on the airline. And they get to see the innards of the new T5, the long awaited oasis in JFK mayhem.

Unfortunately, the event has already booked and overbooked its capacity, so if you haven't already responded to your invite (or didn't get one), you may be out of luck. Keep an eye on Gadling and we'll try to get some good photos and reports of T5 during the event.

After you return home from your trip to New York City, what are people going to ask you? Did you see the Statue of Liberty? Did you ride the subway? Did you eat at one of those restaurants?

Your answers in order might be: Yes, yes, and it was just too damn expensive.

Eating in New York is pricey, especially if you want to go for the complete experience at the high end. For the remainder of July, though, more than 200 of the city's restaurateurs will celebrate NYC Summer Restaurant Week by making their product more accessible to the hot-dog-cart-frequenting, subway-riding masses.

Meal prices are set at $24.07 for lunch and $35.00 for dinner. Sadly, that does not include beverages, tax, or tip.

The best aspect of Restaurant Week is that it is not confined to one neighborhood of the city or one type of cuisine. Diners can try funky fusion dishes at Vong's in Midtown, rub shoulders with New York tend-setters at the TriBeCa Grill, or swirl pasta on their forks at Centovini in SoHo.

It's probably best to get reservations at one of the many participating restaurants. That is unless you are prepared to pay a hefty bribe to the maitre d'.

Those who don't care for the heat of New York in summertime can wait for NYC Winter Restaurant Week, which is normally held in late January.

Photo via Flickr user Plate of the Day

Full disclosure: I know Flickr user sgoralnick, who uploaded this sweet composite image of the Pulaski Drawbridge in between Brooklyn and Queens in New York. But you know what? Her novel creation method for this shot deserves some recognition. This photo uses a technique called panography, basically a Photoshop trick that stitches together many different shots of a single image into one giant whole.

It's a novel way to think of taking a photo, isn't it? But that aside, I also think it ends up looking wicked cool. And sometimes, that's all that matters.

Have any panography shots you want to share with our Gadling readers? Or even a simple panorama? Add it to the Gadling photo pool on Flickr and it just might get chosen as our Photo of the Day.

It's not very often that we Americans are privy to a taste of the Airbus A380, the new supermega jumbo jet that took to the skies last year.

Singapore Airlines was the first customer of the aircraft and though they took a quick zip around the United States, as our friend Mr. Cranky talked about last year, most folks have barely seen or heard much about the aircraft -- after all, none of Singapore's A380 flights regularly touch American soil.

Emirates, Dubai's glorious national carrier, however, has more appeasing plans. Starting later this summer, the airline is opening flights on the A380 between New York's JFK and Dubai, while routes from Los Angeles and San Francisco are planned for later in the year.

The airline plans to kick off its festivities with an inaugural flight reception at JFK on August 1st, where the media will be treated to inbound airport goodies from tarmac access to interviews with Emirates' staff and general merriment. Then, the aircraft flies cross country to California where two "acquaintance" flights are scheduled for the media and other interested parties. Too bad that's on the wrong coast for me.

If you've got any friends in the media world, now might be a good time to cash in your chips for a ride on the A380 -- otherwise you're going to have to wait to fly revenue. Last time I checked, those flights were going for about two grand.

Stay tuned for pictures and coverage from the Emirates reception.

See that guy over there, the one wearing a business suit lying on the floor inside an orange tent at the airport? The first time I saw that picture on The New York Times website, I laughed, and then I thought to myself, genius, absolute genius. The Mini Motel, a one-person tent complete with air mattress, pillow, reading light and alarm clock, that's what Frank Giotto, a business traveler, created after an unscheduled stay at a German airport.

There's one problem with the luxury tent, and it's a pretty big problem. Simply put, it's a tent. Personally, I can't see too many passengers interested in buying a tent. I mean who in their right mind wants to lug that thing on the airplane - just in case there's a delay, or cancellation, or something that would cause one to set up tent? Nor do I see the airlines purchasing it. Not when they're getting rid of things - namely employees - in order to save money. So who do I see desperate to get their hands on a luxury tent aimed at stranded people at the airport? Flight attendants of course!

According to Wikipedia, Commuting is the process of traveling between one's place of residence and regular place of work. For most people, normal people, commuting means getting in the car or hopping on a train and taking an hour long ride to the city where the office is located. Commuting for a flight attendant is a whole other animal. We cross cities, as in several cities, in order to get to work. Yet it's what a lot of flight attendants choose to do, particularly the ones based in New York - like me! Yes, I am a commuter. I commute from my home in Los Angeles to New York where I start my trips at one of two New York airports. I know I know, it's a little crazy, but it works.

"Why in the world did you bid that!" I asked my mother, who is also a flight attendant (yeah, I know, it's a bit of a freak show over here), when she told me about her nightmare trip from New York to Miami. "I haven't worked that route in years."

The New York to Miami flight is by far one of the worst trips to work if you're a flight attendant, which is why, I imagine, when it comes to seniority, it tends to go a little junior.

"It looked good on paper," my mother said, who is not all that junior, even though she is junior to me. And then she went on to tell me all about the irate passenger who freaked out when she, my mother, also a flight attendant, asked the passenger to put her very large purse (not that size matters) in the overhead bin, a purse that was lying on the floor in the bulkhead row, the same bulkhead row the flight attendant making the announcement kept referring to in her PA, the one that distinctly states carry-on items may not block aisles or exits and may not be placed on the floor at the first row of each cabin.

"You've got to stop working those flights!" I said, interrupting yet another story about another irate passenger. How many were there you ask? I lost count. I was too stressed out just listening to her talk to pay attention.

Really, I do not know what it is about that particular route that makes it so unenjoyable to work, but the New York - Miami crowd is tough, which is why I stopped working that flight as soon as I had enough seniority to hold something else, something better, something good, something flying west like San Diego, Seattle, Los Angeles, or San Francisco - simply put, something with a lot less drama. I take pride in being nice and polite to my passengers. I actually enjoy providing a good service. But that's not always so easy to do from New York to Miami. Trust me, those flights can get ugly - very very ugly! And since I don't do ugly, not anymore, it's off to another destination for me.

Hey, just being honest here. That's all

With that said, imagine how unsurprised I was to hear about the New York - Miami flight on Sunday night where the crew refused to work the flight due to the hostile environment. Apparently the crew was late to the gate. No where does it mention WHY the crew was late, but they could have been late for several reasons, like a late inbound flight they were working, or perhaps the original crew went illegal and this crew was called out at the last minute, who knows, but whatever the reason, they arrived on the scene over an hour late and passengers booed and things just got ugly.

Trust me, it takes a lot to make the crew walk off an airplane. I've never seen in it 13 years. Flight attendants, for the most part, are pleasers, which means they would never do anything that would put their job in jeopardy (like walking off a flight), so that hostile environment must have been pretty darn bad, much more hostile than you and I could ever imagine. And so they walked.

Of course I can't help but wonder how far those flight attendants walked? Did they just walk off the airplane and go to flight operations or did they actually go all the way home? And more importantly, did they ever come back?

Honestly, if this were any other flight going to any other destination, I wouldn't believe what I was reading either. But this was a New York - Miami flight, therefore I believe, I truly believe that things got so bad the flight attendants broke down and disappeared. Something tells me you might actually see those flight attendants still walking, walking in a daze down the side of the road, a rag tag bunch wearing navy blue polyester and pulling their Travelpros behind them. Poor things. So if you happen to see a worn out group of four or five dressed in blue, show the love and honk your horn!

BEEP BEEP!

And while you're at it, go ahead and show the love to all of your flight attendants! And we'll show the love right back. Happy travels to all and to all a good flight.

My mom just arrived back in Columbus this morning at 7 a.m. from her trip to New York City on a Greyhound bus. The bus was one minute early. Wow! I thought that she'd be late due to the wicked thunderstorm that tore through here all last night.

When I pulled into a non-parking space in front of the station (there was just enough room to maneuver behind another car actually parked at a meter), there she was with her small pull behind that she was allowed to carry-on. If she had checked it there would have been no charge.

One more point for Greyhound.

As I posted previously, my mom took the Greyhound because it was cheaper and easier than flying at the time she found out she needed to get to New York. That still seems to be the case.

Unless, you are the woman my mother told me about who got on in Newark, New Jersey.

"Where are you going?" My mother asked her.

"Los Angeles," the woman said.

"My!" said my mother. "When will you get there?"

"Tomorrow."

"Tomorrow?!" My mom wondered how that could be.

That couldn't be. When they changed buses in Pittsburgh, the woman found out she didn't have a clue. She won't arrive in Los Angeles until Saturday.

My mom said she had an accent, so perhaps when someone explained the trip details, she missed something. Obviously.

I hope she didn't have much planned for the next couple of days and thought to bring a good book with her--or several. If nothing else, she snagged the best travel mistake story I've heard in awhile.

(In case you're wondering. If you go from New York to Los Angeles, it will take 2 days, 12 hours and 25 minutes minimum and you would have had to make one bus change. Some schedules take longer with two transfers.You will have traveled 3072 miles. It costs $192 if you don't want a refundable ticket or $215 if you do. There is one ticket left for today's bus that leaves at 11 a.m.)