This is a Trip Report from the Premium Economy cabin
Ground Staff
Food & Drink
Entertainment
Seat
Cabin Crew
We spent the previous evening as guests of Hamptons by Hilton on the Bath Road and whilst the room was adequate neither of slept well. The reception arranged a pre booked taxi the previous evening and sure enough at 8:15 a driver was there waiting to transport us to T3. My first observation of the check in area was DELTA, had I got the wrong Zone? Anyway the check in experience was pretty meh, as the kids would say and after a 20 or so minute wait and BC's in hand we headed for security. After about 20 minutes we were through ( LGW security IMHO is more efficient) We set up camp at a bar/restaurant which I cant remember the name of and all to long it was time to head t the gate.
When we arrived we enjoyed the priority boarding and as they has begun boarding the aircraft we walked straight onto the plane. My first impressions of the Dreamliner were simply WOW, now i'm certain a single aircraft on its own cannot improve a passengers experience of an airline but this plane may yet go someway in driving VA to the next level again. The smell, the light, the ceiling height, sense of space the whole ambiance was incredibly peaceful and once I had settled into what will be my "bottom park" for the next 10 hours I felt relaxed and couldn't wait to get going! I might add on my return trip in what will be my first experience of UC didn't hit me in the same way but more of that in the return TR.
The flight itself was seamless, I have flown the route many times and I can honestly say I got out of my seat probably no more than 3 times to use the bathrooms and at no time did i feel the need to stand for 10 minutes or so in the galley area to stretch , the seat was that good! I cant remember what lunch was but it was ok, we had a pasty type offering later on which was tasty but not big enough and then the sandwiches which as always were lovely but not enough. The crew imho were surly and very shall we say mechanical throughout and my wife being ex VA CC was very aware. The seat experience was so good that it wasn't an issue though. We started our decent into LAX and one thing that really shocked me was when we passed Vegas (On my right) I watched a plane roar past underneath us, it was so close I could see it was an American Airlines plane! Later that night I couldn't get it out of my mind how close that plane was and went onto the planefinder app and ran a re run of that time and location and I promise you the data showed 1000ft difference in altitude!! Would I by right in thinking that was a near miss
We landed ahead of schedule by 1/2 an hour and proceeded to immigration. This part of our evolution was probably the most painful, it took aprox 2 hours for us to get through, goodness knows what anyone would have done with young children during that time, it was an utter shambles, I had been told they have new machines like at home at LAX but they were stacked up and not working. The problem is there were at least 4 international flights and probably no more than 6 officers processing, at one point one of them got up and cleared off without being replaced, my understanding is they clear all of the "home growns" first before opening more desks for the internationals! By the time we were through obviously our bags were already off the carousel !
So to summarize , first flight back with Virgin in over 6 years, the Aircraft was superb and I cant recommend it enough , seat and entertainment superb and to be frank would happily save money on the UC option on the 7 or 23. Crew did their job but pretty average, check in un inspiring but I guess these days Virgin have got other things to be concerned about.
Thanks for reading.