Tickets for Virgin America’s first flights went on sale today on the airline’s website. But good luck getting on the site.

Or, if you are lucky enough to get into the site, good luck with completing the buying process. We’re hearing that if you pick a flight and get to the seat selection stage, then the site crashes.

Seems the airline’s website is a bit overloaded this morning.

Also, as one observer on one of our airline geek lists noted, there is an interesting notice on the airline’s “News” page.

“Notice about booking tickets on Virgin America

Virgin America does not currently have authority from the Department of Transportation to operate the services for which your ticket is being issued. You may, upon request, cancel your ticket and obtain a full refund at any time before we start operations. If we have not started operations by the date of your ticketed travel, we will make reasonable efforts to arrange substitute air transportation for you, at a cost of up to 200% of your Virgin America ticket. If we cannot arrange substitute transportation for you, we will refund to you 200% of the price paid for your Virgin America ticket.”

What is this all about? Minimal funding requirements of the DOT. Obviously the airline has not finished the task of getting their initial funding fully compliant with DOT regs.

Given the estimated cash burn of the airline — while it sat grounded waiting for official DOT approval but continued to take delivery of aircraft — I would say that those behind the initial funding for the airline will want to see an IPO attempt sooner than later.

Initial schedule, as posted on the website, is as follows:

SFO-LAX starts August 8

SFO-JFK starts August 8

LAX-JFK starts August 29

SFO-IAD starts September 26

SFO-LAS starts October 10

LAX-IAD starts October 24

Just saw some pictures from the interior of the new planes yesterday. No question. They look sleek, sexy, and pretty high tech.