This is a Trip Report from the Upper Class cabin
Ground Staff
Food & Drink
Entertainment
Seat
Cabin Crew
Straight through Immigration and to departures, no time for the lounge.
Boarded, 5C. Nightmare seat next to bar. No hello until after climb, although my suit jacket was hung as I changed into my SS pre taxi.
Belts off, and drink ordered. Took another 15 minutes to arrive, which isn't great if you're in 5C watching everyone elses go out!
Food ordered. IFE on. IFE off. And on. This was VAEL I think, the oldest A343. And it was a bit crap. IFE failed, so onto DVD's.
Food arrived. Dreadful. Soup to start. A bit phlegm-y. No garlic bread and no little 747 cruets. But the FSM, who was brilliant did do the rounds.
Main course, pie. With a 'syrup' like gravy. Not good.
Then desert, ice cream. Key ingredient, liquid nitrogen. I swear to god if I had hit it with a hammer it would have shattered. Would it really be too much to think 'if we let this defrost in the galley for 10 minutes the pax will be really happy'.
Then, no cheese. All gone. 'Mis-catered'. Not good.
No offer of coffee.
An hour later tubs of ice-cream offered in UC - is this new? Tasted of petrol
I know you're all thinking I'm a minnie-moaner... but it's out of love and desperation. I want it to be right. And when it's this wrong it really hurts.
Sleep for a little while (this flight is LONG). Wake up to loud group of people round bar. Apparently VS is recruiting in BOM and was flying back staff for training, they were all around the bar mid-flight, again when most people are sleeping, getting a briefing. Again, initiative - is it too much to think about the impact this has on resting passengers?
Coupled with about an hour later, part of this group, who made no secret of the fact that they were VS staff - ticketed in Upper at the bar discussing the ups and downs of VS and talking about how they'd been 'bollocked' by Richard. Nice. And odd things about Steve Ridgeway. I won't share the rest. But it was so innappropiate, words failed me.
At this point I went to speak with the FSM (who was brilliant) she was shocked and had a word.
You know when you get to that point where you think 'nothing can now fix this' - that was it.
Duty free order forgotten, then mixed up.
Sat at bar and colleague got me out of my funk and we had a giggle (quietly). Had a remarkable pizza as a pre-landing snack.
Had good chat with FSM who apologised and said she'd log it. I filled in a form, and who knows.
Landed fine (short stack around LHR) and off home. Limo good.
I won't moan any more. I just needed closure on this. 5 years with VS. Gold. High spender. Not great.
In closing. QUALITY is all about CONSISTENCY, and I think VS are really letting themselves down and as a consequence, passengers.