AA155 - LHR-BOS Economy - 9/11/2008
Posted: 10 Nov 2008, 14:52Not so. On arrival at T3 it turns out the flight has been cancelled & 'We only found out a couple of hours ago'... Hmm. Im not sure I believe that, but not much I can do other than get in the long line of people queued at the mysterious desk 40 so thats what I did. About 20 mins later I reach the front of the queue & Im given the option to travel Economy with AA, but leave at 17.55 or PE with BA, but leave an hour later than that - now its currently just after midday & VS11 was booked to leave at 14.40 I decided that the best bet was the earlier flight, since taking the BA flight would mean getting over to T5 & wasting another hour sitting around (not that I was happy about the extra three hours I was going to have to spend in T3; ironically one of the reasons I had booked PE over E for this trip was that it would push me up to Gold status & an extra three hours in the clubhouse would have been less of a trial!); So AA it was - Ok, I would have to fly in the back of the plane, but how bad could it be ?
Well, pretty bad really. They left boarding late & for the first time I witnessed the crazy way that they have to close the corridor out to the gates to let incoming passengers across & in to the arrivals corridor.. Not once, but three times.. Amazing; is that the best solution they could come up with ? Still, we got to gate 18 eventually & looking out the window I could see the plane we would be using.. Wait.. is that a 767 ? and its full ? and Im in the back ? terrific ! Last time I flew transatlantic on a 767 was with Maxjet & I never really appreciated the way they had their planes setup until now; the AA flight was like going back in time to the 70s - IFE on the 'big' screen above the isle, no space for 2008 sized 'hand' luggage, no space for 2008 sized people & no free booze.
Having said that the actual flight could have been a lot worse. It was uncomfortable, cramped, overly hot followed by blasts of freezing cold air, uncomfortable (that gets mentioned twice for emphasis) & noisy. But then I had books to read, TV to watch on my portable media player & I even splurged $6 on a beer; the crew were cheerful & did their best to keep everyone happy & there were only a couple of passengers-from-hell, none of which were near me. I suspect it would have been a different story if I had a couple of children to entertain, or I had ordered a special meal with Virgin & found that there were none available. Speaking of the Chicken or the beef, its reassuring to see that the food on AA is about the same as the food on Virgin - just about acceptable, but not something I would pay money for.. We left LHR about an hour late in the end & arrived into BOS about 30 mins behind schedule. No sign of the BA flight landing so maybe I lucked out after all & they were still stuck at LHR.
So - final thoughts.
Would I choose to fly AA transatlantic again ? no. It all seems to work but its old school & not really comparable with the offerings from VS or BA.
Was VS11 canceled because of problems, or because it wasnt busy enough ? I dont suppose Ill ever know.
Am I happy with the way that Virgin handled this ? Not really. I understand the economics & how tight things are at the moment, but if the flight was going to be cancelled & I had known the day before I could have worked up a better option than the one I ended up with - flying into JFK & then getting the shuttle up to BOS for example.
Oh - one more thing - we were given the wrong visa waver forms by the AA people at checkin in London; apparently we had next years form & we had to 'go to the back of the hall & fill in the proper one' which added another 30 mins to the delightful immigration process... just what you need. I can tell you that on next years form we get to supply an email address & a contact telephone number.
