This is a Trip Report from the Upper Class cabin
Ground Staff
Food & Drink
Entertainment
Seat
Cabin Crew
Remember, remember, the Fifth of November, gunpowder, treason and plot... or miss the whole lot by spending the night in a 747-400.
Check-in abysmal, took 30 mins because of outsourced staff fighting with nightmarish convoluted VS IT and processes. They seemed to think that an S->G upgrade incurred a $30 change fee, and I was frogmarched to the ticket desk, where I had to ask for the Station Manager to attend before the staff showed any sign of backing down on the charge. The Station Manager didn't actually have to come in the end, just the request to see the Station Manager caused an instant backdown.
I don't blame the outsourcer's staff. Contracted handlers are a common thing. It seems that VS just haven't equipped them with the right tools to do their jobs.
It's grim that VS have got rid of their familiar and knowledgeable staff, and outsourced to the lowest bidder, inconveniencing the passenger, all for a few lousy bob.
CH was fairly empty when I arrived, so I took a seat in one of the red 70's style chairs, and the service was pretty good. The chocolate bread pudding was rather good!
I did have to prompt the (again outsourced) CH receptionist to offer me a Revivals invitation though.
Flight was called at around 1605PST, and headed down to security, where there was only one checkpoint open, but only a fairly short line leading to the usual TSA shoe charade. However, checkpoint staff were helpful, polite and friendly. SFO is one of the first US airports where the TSA have moved the screeners back to the Private Sector, but under some sort of TSA supervision or scrutiny, so maybe they don't feel they have a God/Bush-given right to bark orders at the pax anymore?
Headed down to gate A8, did the US-Visit thing to leave the country, and boarding was just getting underway. Clearly marked priority boarding, which worked, and as usual at SFO, both jetways were used to board. Settled into seat 12A - there wasn't much else left in the way of better Upper seats by the time my upgrade cleared - and was quickly offered a drink. Menu and amenity kit were already laid out next to the seat. Met up with the crew members I'd travelled with on the way out - they had a good lay over in SF, did lots of Xmas shopping.
OUT 1645PST 0045Z
OFF 1659PST 0059Z
Estimated flight time 9h25, full aircraft. Why do I always end up on chockabloc flights?
Departure from Rwy 1R, slightly unusual for VS, but gave us a quick taxi, and caught some of the crew napping, I think ;-).
As we were taxiing out, we saw the Air France A340 taxiing back to Terminal with Fire Service in trail, though not visibly on fire. I guess they had some problem and either cancelled their take off, or came straight back to the airport.
The KLM MD11 operating the AMS flight had also come back to the terminal, not sure why, but it pushed again just as we were getting ready to depart, so couldn't have been anything too serious, I guess.
Departure over Oakland/Alameda, before heading toward Sacramento.
Seatbelt sign off climbing through 10000ft, and Captain made his introduction (didn't get chance before push), and cocktail orders promptly taken by the cabin crew (No 10 and tonic for me!).
Faceless nurse video started at 1740PST, laptop power on at 1744PST (after asking twice). Why do they shut it off? No other airline seems to do this. I often like to get some work done or read some email during the cocktail service/before dinner, and while the news (which I've already seen) is running!
Dinner orders taken at 1745 PST. This was a decent menu, I think, though it bore some similarities to the Upper menu around this time last year - the baked cod main course, crab cake 'light bite', and chocolate pyramid dessert seemed familiar!
A shrieking baby was in 9K. Stressed parent often standing in aisle rocking said baby back and forth, which consisted of dizzying spins in the aisle in front of the beauty pod, like she was swinging a cat! It just wouldn't go down to sleep for much of the first couple of hours of flight. I think the mother appreciated having 'Freedom' on this flight, as she could eat once her baby was finally sleeping.
Lights were dimmed to purple about 60 minutes after the off. This wasn't full-blown GNF, but a nice touch to bring on snooziness for those who wanted some shut-eye.
Noticed that only two of the 14 purple side-lighters were working in the entire A zone. Even some of the plain white tubes were blown too. VS MX snoozing off on the job, or a heavy landing?
We were 'ordered' to put down window blinds at 1804 PST (0204Z), as the News tape finished (back down to 25 minutes again!), because it would 'be getting light soon' (actually in about another 6 hours!).
The seat seemed in reasonable condition, no major signs of wear and tear, and it looks like the TV monitor surround had been replaced/repainted too. It wasn't hanging off or scratched up.
V:port started around 1815 PST (0215Z) and dinner trays started to be brought out at 1825 (0225Z), and bread and wine offered. This was followed by a bit of a wait for the starters to arrive, which is quite annoying.
I wonder if this would work better if the place setting was brought with the appetiser already on it, closely followed by the CSS with the wine service?
The FSM didn't do a walk-around, but seemed to be helping a lot with the service - doing wine and bread service, as we had a full load in J, so was visible to the pax, and didn't hide out for the whole flight.
I don't recall the full menu on this flight, but as I was followed a week later by a hoarde of V-Flyers, we'll probably get a full-blown report of everything on it shortly!
I chose the salad with sliced steak, followed by the mozzarella and tomato sourdough roll (one of the lighter bites), and chocolate pyramid to finish. All were very enjoyable, and of a good quality. One of the first times I've given a good mark to VS J cabin food for a while.
This leisurely meal service works fine for the longer sectors like SFO, but I can understand why the GNF exists for short flights like JFK/EWR. With a 6 hour flight time, you would be half way across the Atlantic before you had eaten your meal.
Watched a bit of entertainment, but the handset in my seat was somewhat sick, both the 'i' key and the volume control not working. This got notified to the FSM and put in the cabin defect log.
So, to sleep, or so I thought. This seat, 12A, is definitely spoiled by noise and light spill from the galley. You've also got a pair of jumpseats (and their work lights) behind you, and the light spilling from the massage pod. I'd have been better off with 20A on this flight, as the bar wasn't at all busy/noisy. So, I slept fairly fitfully, catching 30 mins here, and 60 mins there with my Bose QC2s drowing out the background noise, and an occasional trip up to the (deserted) bar.
I had originally declined breakfast, hoping to sleep through (hence I'd declined an IFBT treatment), but as this wasn't to be, I had a coffee and bacon roll. Both were disappointing, unfortunately. Lukewarm bacon, tough spongy roll, and insipid coffee to round it off - come on VS, get rid of that nasty Douwe Egberts powder! If BA and almost every other 'real' airline can manage filter coffee, why can't you? (I wonder if the tea is also 'instant'?) A real shame as the main meal had been much more enjoyable.
It seems that part of the problem is that 'procedure' says to re-heat all the breakfast materials in one go, rather than in 'chunks' during the breakfast service, meaning that stuff has to be kept warm.
I still feel the J cabin food service could be massively improved by switching over from a flight attendant galley operator to a trained 'air chef' and some tweaking of galley equipment, so that they are able to better finish and present the food items. VS were always such an innovator, and I can't help feeling they are a bit stale these days.
Arrival:
Our routing had took us a little further south than normal, to take advantage of favourable tailwinds, so rather than making landfall off Scotland as is usual, it was the Western Irish coast after a very smooth crossing, leaving Canada behind near Goose Bay.
Routing then took us across to Strumble in Pembrokeshire, overhead Cardiff and Bristol before starting our descent into London, to do a couple of laps of the Ockham hold before making our approach. This was a couple of days since the G-VWOW engine pod scrape incident, and with the howling South Westerly crosswinds at work again, our pilot warned us to expect a bit of a rough last 15 minutes. Despite the lumpy approach, we converted it to a smooth touchdown. [8D]
ON 1033Z 27R
IN 1038Z stand 332
Long walk back to the arrivals hall via the new upper passageways, and it seemed that the escalator from gate level to the arrivals level was out of service, or someone was unable or forgot to switch it on. Nothing like stairs to remind you that you have legs!
Not a big line in immigration, but there was about a 10 minute wait for the bags to come out. They have also almost finished rebuilding the customs hall in T3, looks pretty good, and much brighter these days!
Off to Revivals: nice new wooden floor in the entryway, and the Revivals spa is now converted from V-Touch to Cowshed, the showers now feature Cowshed toiletries.
The pax in front of me didn't have an invite, despite being a J pax, and I commented to the Revivals receptionist that I had to prompt for an invite in SFO. She didn't seem to be aware of the staff changes happening State-side.
Got allocated yet another 'black and white' themed shower. I will have to ask for a change next time. I've noticed that the heated floors seemed to be switched off on my last couple of trips. Bean counting at work here?
However, there was plenty of hot water, unlike last time, so a slightly less bracing shower, but the new Bumble and Bumble shampoo didn't smell that great to be honest, quite harsh chemical kind of smell. I'll use my own next time!
There was no invite to recieve a Cowshed treatment, and no list in the menu of what treatments were available, which was disappointing.
Came out from the shower, dumped the big case out in the luggage area, and relaxed with some decent coffee and some pastries before having the signature breakfast dish (which isn't served on a muffin anymore, instead with toasted brioche bread slices - I think the muffin was better), and a bacon muffin (so I got my muffin in the end!). The service was absolutely spot-on, as usual.
Revivals really is great. VS would do well to extend this to any downline stations which recieve overnight arrivals, such as LGW, JNB, HKG, NRT, it would be a great upsell for Upper Class, and an amazingly good benefit for Flying Club Au members. ISTR that BA have an Arrivals lounge at LGW and JNB already.
Eventually felt alive enough to take on the Heathrow Express, and use up one of those First Class upgrade vouchers, except the ticket collector didn't take it off me and said 'Save it for next time'. Erm, okay!
All in all, a good flight experience itself, it got me from A to B in comfort, and early. The crew were good, though not as outstanding as the outbound sector.
Things were let down by 12A being a pretty awful seat, the useless check-in experience at SFO (come back Claire, Luz and Beau!), and the flaky breakfast, which was made up for by Revivals being on top form.
Cheers!
Mike
