VS076 MCO-MAN 27 Oct 05 (PE)

This is a Trip Report from the Premium Economy cabin

Ground Staff

Food & Drink

Entertainment

Seat

Cabin Crew

Managed to avoid Wilma-only really affected us by heavy rain and the theme parks being closed that morning. Magic Kingdom and Epcot opened at 1pm and stayed open later than scheduled.
Anyway I digress.
Arrived MCO about 4pm. No lines at check-in. I was amazed as it's usually heaving. Straight to the desk. Seats re-assigend to 70AC and 71AC. Explanation 'the flight is full so I assume there has been a problem seating people together'. A bit disappointed as we had enjoyed the seats outbound and like to be at the back so that if the kids play up no-one notices.
Anyway after a drink we made our way throught securtiy. Again much shorter lines that we have experience before.
Another drink before heading to the gate. Usual spread of people hanging around and not clear if peope were in lines. I asked a man if he was in line to which he asked what row I was in. At that point I couldn't remember the exact answer-it had been 79 and 80 for the last 11 months so I just said 'I'm upstairs' which I susptect may have come across as snotty. I didn't mean to. But I didn't want to get into a whole dialogue about how it didn't matter which row I was in as I could board any time. Oh well.
Our seats were occupied but the correspending HK rows weren't. Checked with cabin crew and people realised they were in the wrong seats. They offered to move but as they all seemed settled it seemed churlish to when at first impression it didn't seem to make much difference. However it may have been better to asked them to move to be slightly futher away form the toilets-see later.
Was surprised to have to ask crew for the care chair as I had heard the check-in agent 'phone the request through. Had to ask for a drink too.
From then on crew were superb. Used our names which as well as sounding polite also shows they've bothered to look it up and remember.
Pulled back 5 mins early at 6.10 and took off shortly after.
Drink service and meal service prompt, excpet the kids meals took a while to be brought up from downstairs. Spaghetti and meatballs for the kids which neither liked. Salmon for me-same as my wife's but she had sauce on hers. Fruit for my dessert instead of cheescake. (I'd requested low fat).
We were on Virginia Plain so Odyseey IFE and the differnece was noticeable in the games and choice of films.
Cabin lights remained dimmed for most of the flight. Kids dropped off around 9 pm.
Now I couldn't settle at all. The familly opposite kept their reading lights on for most of the flight. Howver the main problem was constant traffic of people using the toilets-the doors were noisy closing as was the toilet flushing. In addition the cock-pit door slammed each time it shut. Now I'll confess I don't sleep well on aircraft, but the one place I have done is PE on the old 742's so I was disappointed not to get any on this flight. I couldn't help curse the people in 'our' seats. I did glance at them on a visit to the galley and there was no obvious reason why they should be there e.g. a famiily with a baby or young children etc. I note seat requests are just that, but I would have felt better with perhaps a more detailed explanation as to why we had to move.
Anyway that's why I have rated the seat below average. The seat itself was fine. A point to note-the H seats have the IFE box underneath them so do restrict leg room a little compared with the adjacent seats.
Crew were very attentive and the drinks rounds were the most frquest I recall with VA.
Breafast was the usual muffin (Apple and cinnamon-yak!) and fruit-at least it was melon and not grapefruit.
We landed an hour early at 6.30 and horror of horrors had to go to a stand and be bussed in. The Captain apologised profusley-explained this was an increasing problem at UK airports and that VA had no control over it.
Not first off the plane but still before some UC passengers. Why don't they use the doors behind row 12 of UC insteasd of the one by row 23 of economy?
Still-through immigration and bags already on the belt. Out of customs by 7.15 and heading home by 7.30.
Disaapointed by seat choice but other than that can't complain. Am womndering if downstairs might be better for a night flight because the traffic to the toilets is coming form UC at the front and they are positioned further away from the seats. Maybe try those next time.
David

Why did you not use Downtown Dismey Check in? thats probably when the seats were assigned.

We did consider it.
However we wanted to get to the Magic Kingdom and then the kids wanted a swim before we set off for the airport. We wanted to keep the bags rather than have changes of clothes/wet swim suits etc on the plane with us.
I did hope to use OLCI but there is a lack of internet availabilty at WDW-the only places I could find are the business centres at the Boardwalk, Yacht and Beach, and Coronado Springs resorts and getting there within the time frame didn't work into our plans.
If the genral opinion here is that using OLCI or Downtown Disney are more likely to get you your chosen seats I would make more effort next time.

Hi,

Glad you enjoyed the flight from MAN on the 744, I will be following in your footsteps very soon!

In terms of your loading question. A lot of airlines use both the L1 and L2 doors for loading a 744. This makes a lot of sense as the First/business class can load through a seperate door to economy. Virgin seldom use this method, although it has been debated many times I do not think we have a definate answer why. I can only assume that extra handling charges would apply at the airport.

If VS were to use the L1 door instead of the L2 then all the economy passengers would have to push past the already seated, or getting seated Upper class passengers. This would of course have implications on VS UC service and would create a bottle neck.

The use of L2 also allows for Upper Deck passengers to go straight upstairs without having to push through the cabin.

Hope this helps.

Neil.

Originally posted by Virgin Lover


In terms of your loading question. A lot of airlines use both the L1 and L2 doors for loading a 744. This makes a lot of sense as the First/business class can load through a seperate door to economy. Virgin have never used this method, although it has been debated many times I do not think we have a definate answer why. I can only assume that extra handling charges would apply at the airport.

Virgin does indeed use this method at SFO [:D]. No scrum, easy lines to understand and you are through without a problem.

SQ does use both doors at LHR however, something I wish VS would do, but I would guess there is a lack of of gates at LHR to do that with.

Cheers
sky

[Scrooge]

Originally posted by sky

Originally posted by Virgin Lover


In terms of your loading question. A lot of airlines use both the L1 and L2 doors for loading a 744. This makes a lot of sense as the First/business class can load through a seperate door to economy. Virgin have never used this method, although it has been debated many times I do not think we have a definate answer why. I can only assume that extra handling charges would apply at the airport.

Virgin does indeed use this method at SFO [:D]. No scrum, easy lines to understand and you are through without a problem.

SQ does use both doors at LHR however, something I wish VS would do, but I would guess there is a lack of of gates at LHR to do that with.

Cheers
sky

There have been times when I was on VS7 that they loaded through two airbridges,no idea of the gate number though

VS251 in PVG also uses 2 bridges, and very good it is too.

Hi

Earlier post now updated to change 'never' use to 'seldom' use.

I hope they can start to use 2 airbridges in the UK.

Neil.

I think there are only a few gates at T3 capable of doing this, have boarded UA and AA flights like that before.

Originally posted by ade99
I think there are only a few gates at T3 capable of doing this, have boarded UA and AA flights like that before.

All the stands on Pier 7 - old 'Limas' and 'Kilos' - the far pier at T3, are dual bridged, that's stands 313-322. However VS don't use that pier much, it seems to be dominated by UA and AA, though I've arrived 315 and 313 on VS flights before now.

VS mostly us Pier 5, stands 323-340. Of those stands, about 60% of them have dual bridges. The 'cluster' at the far end, which VS are a major user of, are mostly single bridged, except I think for 342 and 338.

Note that the last two digits of the stand number correspond to the gate number. (It's the gate number prefixed with '3' for terminal three.)

Cheers,
Mike