This is a Trip Report from the Upper Class cabin
Ground Staff
Food & Drink
Entertainment
Seat
Cabin Crew
The car arrived bang on time at the Hilton Checkers (recommended) where we'd been staying, and the ride out to the airport was a quick 30 minutes. As we passed Terminal 1 our driver was keen to point out the queues of travellers to Las Vegas snaking out onto the pavement. Unfortunately T2 wasn't that much better: a crush of people blocked the doors and the two security guards checking hand baggage were being mobbed in a scrum of travellers. We fought our way to the front and must have looked somewhat haughty since we were waved through with a muttered query of 'You Upper Class?'.
Check in was fast enough, but a further queue of about 100 people waited for us at the bottom of the two escalators up to security. Happily this equated only to around 15 minutes, but once upstairs we were met by a crowd of 250 people waiting to go through. The good news was that our prominently held UC boarding passes were spotted by someone working the line and we were waved through into an unsigned priority line. Priority, that is, in the sense of being preceeded by several business types who had clearly never flown before -- otherwise why would they spend 5 minutes divesting themselves of metal objects once they reached the scanner rather than before?
The Cat and Kitten are made of more seasoned stuff and strode forward as one with laptop in hand, metal objects in carry-ons, wearing trousers which did not require metal buckled belts, and shod with shoes which through previous experience did not set off the detector. Interestingly enough, LAX did have signs up regarding the 'shoe carnival' which noted that you were not required to remove shoes, but that doing so might speed up the security process. Most people were going through fully shod, and I didn't see anyone pulled for a secondary screening, so maybe some changes have happened.
I'd forgotten how small LAX T2 actually is: only a handful of shops and gates mark out the main concourse. I did remember the lift on the right that took us up one floor where we could trot round the balcony to the Air Canada lounge. This does seem to have improved in recent years, or maybe my last visit (a crush due to some delayed AC flights) was unrepresentative. The large windows gave a good view of the gates and of G-VFAB (now renamed Birthday Girl in the 21st Birthday livery) coming onto stand. The lounge sported all the ingredients for a killer Bloody Mary (apart from white wine vinegar, but you can't have everything) plus a basic range of wine and beer. There was also a menu for VS passengers: only three items available, but the sandwich and salad were welcome as a light lunch.
We exited the lounge before the flight was called in order to go down to the duty free shop and buy some BLV Pour Homme for The Cat and some complicated unguents for The Kitten. Not being cognoscienti of duty free, the gate delivery system seemed rather strange, but worked well enough in practice with our shopping thrust into our hands just after the gate agent had checked our boarding cards.
The nose of VFAB (we had 9A and 10A) was a comparative haven of calm, although as usual the lack of bins above rows 6 and 7 led to some scratching of heads (and of unyielding plastic ceiling trim) before the four people in the front seats stowed their hand baggage (I really don't think that a large Louis Vuitton suitcase should count!) above other rows -- 8K and 9K losing out since these seats were last to fill.
We were offered champagne by the delightful cabin crew (friendly, interested and some of the best VS staff I've had the pleasure to fly with) and spoke with the IFBT, before seats 8K and 9K were filled and the cabaret started. 8K and 9K were clearly a retired couple with a fair amount of hand baggage including a case of wine. And Mr 8K was absolutely furious to find that 'his' bin was full of other people's luggage. A great deal of huffing and putting (and sotto voce swearing ensued), before he lighted upon The Kitten's bin over 9A as a suitable repository for his things. Which would have been fine, but for Mr 8K deciding that jamming his things on top of The Kitten's lightweight carry on and our fragile duty free was the right solution to his storage woes.
Quick as a.. well... cat, I lept up and asked him to take more care. Mr 8K by now was dissolving into a paroxysm of rage and fairly spat a response at me. Not a sensible thing to do given that The Cat is built like a second row rugby forward and can be just as mean. In forthright (but polite) terms I told him to go and sit down, calm himself and I would deal with stowing his luggage. A brief bluster was to no avail, particularly as I was holding the bin shut with one hand as he entertained the cabin with a funny, wriggly dance in his attempt to stow his things. I had to repeat myself but eventually he got the message, his things were stowed and, eventually (and half way into the flight) The Kitten got an apology. He was still too frightened to look The Cat in the face though!
I've said before that the staff were very good, althogh they were conspicuous by their absence during this little episode. The Cabin Service Supervisor also cast a pall over proceedings just before take off when she stormed through the cabin barking at people to remove things from their ottomans, not to cover up the vents, sit up straight, and so forth. Happily this was the only negative service to speak of, with the FSM introducing himself (no Carlos, but we'd read it on the outbound) and the flight attendant who served the A side of the cabin being a great advert for all that is good about Virgin service.
Food was not good though -- no suprise, I'm sorry to say. The salmon (which we both had) was overdone, and my potatoes were so raw that my fork (plastic, grrr) couldn't get much of a grip. And the vegetables were just horrible. Still the breakfast (bacon roll, fruit and bagel) was decent, and the excellent Sauvignon Blanc that had also made an appearance outbound helped the journey pass.
Beds converted quickly although the lights went out 30 minutes too soon so that most people were left blundering around in the dark. Still, the UCS gave us both 4 or 5 hours of sleep in a way no other business class (apart from NZ) can, and soon we were approaching LHR over the Thames Barrier.
At this point a couple of tykes in the front cabin started to get boisterous: call me sensitive, but a tell tale dusting of powder in the toilet and some robust behaviour (chucking full water bottles about the cabin, amongst other things) peppered with the odd sniff tells its own tale. Just as things started to get face-punchingly ugly we thankfully landed at LHR and made it to the gate pretty quickly. I was held back by The Kitten since I was about to grab each of these obnoxious little dicks by the throat and administer some home truths punctuated by the odd slap.
Anyway, my blood pressure having started to sink south, we tramped along the arrivals level to a large queue for immigration (to be expected these days) and then to find our bags which were waiting on the carousel. Then out into the sunshine to find a black cab and pay the usual ruinous sum back to Chiswick.
A fine flight with almost uniformly excellent crew marred only by the continuing poor quality of food and some of the clientele. I rather enjoyed it.
BC