Virgin America ready to fly

On Friday, the Department of Transportation gave

Virgin America

, Virgin's new U.S. low-fare airline, final approval to begin flying. And if you've been

monitoring this whole slow process

, you might be saying, as I am, it's about time. I'm looking forward to seeing what elements of the Virgin Atlantic experience the airline will bring to the domestic market.

The first route will be between its home base of San Francisco and New York's JFK. The airline plans to expand to 10 cities within a year and 30 cities within five years.

The announcement came late Friday, and as I'm writing this on Monday morning, there's not yet word on what the official launch date will be. It looks like the airline is still aiming for mid-summer.

In my recent article on the

top five bargain destinations

for summer, San Francisco was one of my picks, in large part because of the Virgin America launch.