This is a Trip Report from the Upper Class cabin
Ground Staff
Food & Drink
Entertainment
Seat
Cabin Crew
Check-in and Chill Out
This was the only real option for checking in. I'd filled in and handed the check-in and chill out info a few days before. VS staff arrived at the Radisson at 10:00am on the 25th. I handed over my passport and ticket and my Upper Class boarding card was presented to me. My luggage was tagged and secured ready to be taken to the airport. I was told pick would be 14:00. 14:55 and the bus finally arrives to take us to the airport.
Airport
NAS airport is a typical Caribbean airport with not very much to do at all. There's absolutley no signs anywhere so once we left the bus we all walked backwards and forwards looking for the security and departure area. Quite a small VS check-in area with just 4 desks in total. Once found I went though a very un-organised security check point with the usual x-ray and scanner. Shoes had to be removed [:(!] and my lap-top also had to be scanned seperately. Found the very small but acceptable lounge (again not marked at all!!) Only just managed to drink a can of coke before the flight was called at 15:45 for a 16:30 departure. Headed to the A/C (G-VROM) and found my seat 8A.
Flight
Usual pre-flight drinks were served. UC was completly full. Unusually an accouncment was given out that there were 279 pax on board todays flight. Pulled back at 16:35 and departed at 16:45 local time. 30 mins into the flight and the fun started..........
.......seat belt signs were switched off after approx 15 mins and Nova was started. It started to get a bit bumpy, then even more bumpy so the seat belt signs were put on.....even more bumpy then the crew were asked to take the nearest jump seats ASAP and wham......we suddenly dropped several thousand feet and anything not fastened down suddenly jumped into the air several feet, including the entire UC bar contents. An Upper Class crew member was unfortunatley just finishing setting up the bar and as we dropped, she also left the floor and hit the the deck pretty hard as well (though after speaking to her afterwards they are trained to get down on the floor in severe turbalance.) She was OK and managed to get up and crawl to the nearest jump seat. The entire bar contents ended up all over the UC cabin, glasses bottles and everything else. There was then an annoucement asking for medical staff. The lady in front of me got up (she was a nurse) and she was needed in economy. It turned out as we dropped, some of the oxygen masked dropped down in the back and a pax hit his head on the panel cutting his head pretty badly. Several other pax were also injured. It was touch and go if we were to turn round or divert to MIA. It was decided we would carry on.
Obviously the cabin service was suspended and shortly afterwards the first officer came down and went round and spoke to everybody seperatley regarding what had just happened explaining exactly what had happened and the fact they did not see anything on the radar. He and all the crew said this was the worst incident of turbalence they had ever experienced. The poor First officer was actually in the washroom at the time (apparently the worst possilbe place to be when you hit turbalence) He was OK as were all the crew, although some of them hit there heads on the over-head lockers during the incident. Another Y pax cut hit nose but he was OK to carry on flying.
The UC cabin and bar area was cleaned up and the cabin service resumed. I am just so thankful I had my seat belt on at the time (as did all the other UC pax).
So when you are asked to put your selt belt on....do it [;)]
The rest of the flight was pretty un-eventful and my seat belt remained on and tight the entire flight. We hit some minor turbalance several times in flight and the seat belt sign was put on straight away.
The crew were fantastic in re-assuring everybody and getting things back to normal as quickly as possible. [:)]
A couple of the seats were playing up but there was a VS engineer flying in UC so he was able to sort them all out.
On landing, paramedics were waiting to take the 2 pax to hospital who had cuts to their head and nose.
Has this put me off flying.....absolutley not [:)] These things happen.
Regards
Regards
James Mitchell
James Mitchell