This is a Trip Report from the Economy cabin
Ground Staff
Food & Drink
Entertainment
Seat
Cabin Crew
We arrived at Zone A at about boarding minus 1 hour. I led the way because I was the only one who actually knew what to do, and we checked in. The woman at the counter was very nice, and seemed more alive than other staff had appeared. We barely had any wait because there was only one family in front of us. It took us a while to get through security, and I was a bit surprised that only one machine per line was open, meaning only 3 were open in total. After we finally escaped the line, we had been assigned a gate, so we didnt have time to look around in the shops. The line was long again at gate 21, but I put aside my boredom when I saw that we would be flying on Birthday Girl! I really hoped that we would, and my wish was granted. When we got into the waiting area, boarding started, but as were in the third row of EC seating, we didnt have to board until last.
Although we had H, H, J, and K (the other H was in the row behind us), these seats had more legroom than the 018 trip as we were not at the back of the plane. Unfortunately, right when we were all ready to leave, the captain came on the intercom to tell us that ATC had delayed our flight by 35 minutes. We ended up taking off.1 hour and 15 minutes later. It seems like the 744 was much quieter than the 346, I dont know if this is because of my different position in the bird, or what, but it was much better. The plane was packed, but any open rows or seats were taken about 3 minutes after the seat belt sign was disabled. On this flight, about 3 babies also joined us in our little EC section, who decided they wanted to put on a chorus for us during about 50% of the flight.
V-Port took a while to go on, and once it did, it was a little slow because it was being accessed simultaneously by almost everyone on the flight. My controller was broken again, but I could make it work by pulling it farther from the dock. The same choice of entertainment awaited me, but I was able to entertain myself by watching Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events and The Aviator. I also beat several people at the quiz game available.
A semi-lunch/dinner service came, and to my surprise, was really, really good. I chose the Chicken with Pasta, and the meat was cooked perfectly and the pasta had a nice flavor, everything was hot too, instead of the usual arctic freeze. A late snack was offered, but I didnt really feel like anything, so I cant really comment on that. Two drink services were on this flight, and the lunner came with a bottle of water, which came in handy to quench my thirst later.
The crew was just as nice and friendly as on most VS flights, but because of the seemingly microscopic size of the call buttons, they tended to ignore most of them. But I cant really blame them, unless there is something that notifies them when a call button is activated.
We landed about half an hour late, and came in from the north and then did a U-turn to land from the south. We had a good view of the New Jersey coast, Sandy Hook, and Staten Island. It seemed like our plane landed really late on the runway, but we were able to stop safely and get to the gate. Lucky for us, the ramp was connected to the exit right in front of us, so we got out in about 3 minutes. Immigration didnt take long, but getting our luggage did. Half of ours came out about 15 minutes in, and then we had to wait another 10 minutes for the next batch to arrive. In total, we got out of the airport about an hour later than we had expected. In fact, our limo driver said that VS told him that the flight would arrive an hour and half earlier than it really had.
This flight was much better than 018, which I took 2 weeks before. The legroom in EC still annoys me, but if I had to choose to fly on a 346 and a 744, I would choose a 744. Of course, I always did love the old 343s.
