VS UC v BA LCY CW comparison

well following on from my TR on Wednesdays BA 001 from LCY to JFK as promised here is my comparison of the two competing products. I flew UC MCO-LGW the week before so (most) things are still fairly fresh.
for a laugh I thought I would score it like a boxing match. 10 points a round for a win, 9 a loss and 8 if the round winner scores a knockdown and honestly at this stage of writing I have no idea of the final score, so................................ lets get ready to travellllllllllllllllllll.
in the red corner Virgins new UC 747 and in the Blue corner BAs A318 baby bus all Club world.although for the trip part I have worked mainly on the LON-JFK route

round 1 fares :
to be fair ( :0 ) I did a dummy return booking for a totally random date Lon-JFK in mid October. VS£2504 BA £2529 close enough for a draw 10-10

Round 2 pre check in....VS let you seat select at -90 BA at -24 hours unless you want to pay $98 extra. VS10 BA 9

Round 3. Online check in......both easy and done quickly with seat selection as required 10-10

round 4. Trip to airport/location...LHR for me is a nightmare, LCY nearer . In addition and a big plus for me is at LCY you can check in a mere 15 mins before take off reducing time at the airport to a bare min, that's a big plus and a knockdown VS 8-BA 10

Round 5 .lounges. The LCY is just a room, but food and drinks and decent waitress service.to be fair you spend little time there. The delta lounge at MCO is hardly worth the walk upstairs. NOW of course if we were comparing LHR lounges we have VS's flagship against BAs much maligned Galeries. for the purpose of the comparison (LCY v MCO) it scores 10-9 in BAs favour but for LHR VS would win , so I am going to go 10-10

round 6 general airport experience/boarding. again LCY is ahead, a smaller airport less bustle, less hassle, and a quick walk to the plane ...against Heathrow. 'nuff said.....9-10 BA

round 7 . the plane, boarding ..up to take off. BA don't offer a pre flight drink as you are on and up so quickly. friendly greeting seat clean and ready...no complaints. VS obviously a busier plane , greeting friendly seat ok. Only BA used name during whole flight ...tut VS 9-10 BA again.

round 8. the seat. BA win by a knockdown on this. the Cw seat starts by being comfy and seems wider. as for adjustment, there is an endless array of buttons, one for seat back, one for the leg rest, one to recline into a very comfortable semi flat position, one to go to full flat bed, one to come up for food and lastly one for landing..all without getting up, plus you get the full effect of the seat cushions when in bed mode against the hard back of Vs's flip over 8-10 BA

round 9 IFE. the new vera touch v an individual ipad.......in all honesty the ipad is nice but lacks the route map, the touch is good too . Draw 10-10

round 10 food and drink.of real importance to the dedicated v-flyer. drinks..well there were different wines and I guess its down to choice, definitely more top ups with BA. Foodwise BA had more choice and the quality was definitely better. 9-10 BA

round 11. Cabin crew. I have to say I expected Virgin to win hands down. Sadly both FSMs were rather stand offish but the FAs with whom there was most interaction were both very good. BA have upped there game. Only BA used names.....tight but a 10-10 draw

and the final round - disembarkation/immigration........well what did you expect ? with the pre-clearance in Shannon you exit the BA flight as a domestic which literally takes seconds...we all know the fun of JFK immigration and its fair to say an hour is probably an average wait time. overall the BA flight takes 9h10 door to door against Virgins 7;45 but you avoid all the hassle at the NY end........it really seals the deal BAs way 9-10


so after a hard fight its Virgin 112 BA 119 a convincing win for the baby bus and I hadn't expected it to be so one sided....my thinking on the way over was 'would I do this again' and looking at this it re-enforces my YES

of course there are factors to consider.
where you live, for me Heathrow is an M25 nightmare, LCY a tunnel (Blackwall or Dartford) hassle BUT there is the option to jump on the DLR. someone living in the west country might prefer LHR.
Lounges...for many the VS lounge is THE big part, for me its as little time as possible in any airport.
metal - a nervous flyer might not appreciate the smaller plane, but the sheer privacy/private jet feel is definitely special.
overall journey. if I took my door to end of JFK trip LHR would be (allowing 1 hour for immigration) at least 12 1/2-13 hours. the LCY was 11 plus for me I could plan a connection a lot closer and be home in Florida earlier than flying direct to either MCO or TPA with the added benefit that MRS FB can collect me at RSW rather than me have to drive 2-3 hours ...meaning ,in true v-flyer tradition I can tonk the vino harder....surely the key factor ????

and so ends the heavyweight championship of the skies with (sadly for a Virgin lover) BA a clear winner and the new champion...................

Thanks for posting Flabound - an interesting comparison. It would be interesting to compare L4L excluding LCY option e.g. a LGW-MCO VS flight with an LGW-MCO or LGW-TPA CW BA flight OR a LHR-NYC VS flight with use of DTCI etc.

Round 2 - I'd give BA a 2-3 score on this, picking seat at T-90 is a nice feature of VS.

Hmmmm

Just to clarify your definition of a win.... which number is higher "VS£2504" or "BA £2529" ?| and "Virgins 7;45" or "BA flight takes 9h10" )

Ok an interesting comparison granted, but I do get the feeling you want BA to win

Biz seats on the LCY - JFK are far better than the UCDS and it is convenient to clear immigration in Shannon first off... however that adds additional time to the journey that could be spent snaking around the JFK immigration hall... or perhaps not - include the average of immigration queues and VS wins on timing hands down!

Come on... how can you draw the lounges VS CH vs Galleries.... :0 :0 Have you been to Galleries lately?? True route comparison LCY business room vs VS CH.. hmmm who would win that one..

Good to hear that BA have upped their game on the crew front.

Cheers for the thoughts on the Biz Seat on the LCY route, will be sticking with the LHR-JFK route for the time being though, as you say all about individual convenience. y)

Round 2 pre check in....VS let you seat select at -90 BA at -24 hours unless you want to pay $98 extra. VS10 BA 9

Only a one point difference ?| ?| ?|

Thanks for this Flabound - I read with interest as it's a route I may use soon.

I wonder though, whether the off the pane thing and wonder about for 20 minutes thing might get waring - afterall, you've just settled in, had a drink etc, and then it's "everyone off and immigrate...". Upside is you get to stretch your legs I guess in the fresh air...

Don't forget, if you achieve BA AG you will get free seat selection as well...

I find others responses interesting and believe it further demonstrates that direct comparisons are so dependent on what the individual finds important.

Like you, I'm not the biggest fan of hanging around in airport lounges for the sake of it, however spectacular the surroundings. If it's civilised, quiet and supplies me with food and drink of sufficient quality, I'm happy.

Anyway, I appreciate your view on the relative stregnths as set against what's jmatters more or less to you, it was fascinating read.

Oh, and loved the boxing match analogy!

Joey, I can answer your questions (I hope)

truly I was not looking or hoping for a BA win just tried to score it fairly. I have been a VS user exclusively for years having fallen out badly with BA (which ended in the small claims court)

I really thought £25 difference was small enough not to matter, to be fair the cost of a taxi would have narrowed that (for me)

Lounges - I did say if it was purely LHR VS would win but that the MCO offering was so dire I scored it a draw. as you say LCY v VS LHR -no contest

the times --I was more trying to look at an overall time than actual flight time (even then the 9.10 allows 45 mins on the ground at Shannon). its at the JFK end the quick 'off' counts


as you say its personal preferences. Mine are always
1. seat comfort
2. speed out of the airport
3. food and drink
4. convenience

lounges and IFE are a real secondary in my case

What a great comparison -- thank you for posting it. I have not tried the babybus yet but hope to do so sometime soon, and your observations are very interesting.

For me LCY is not very convenient at all, so I prefer LHR and thus VS because the ground product is so strong. But preclearance does appeal to me -- it is such a pain waiting in line at JFK...

I'm not particularly surprised that BA won -- the CWLCY route gets consistently good reviews, often highlighting crew.

That was an amazing comparison, and you are really fair so thanks!

Just thought I'd mention, that the A318 CW is essentially their flagship product and from experience is better than First most of the time. But MCO-LGW is not the flagship Virgin one, more like 747 LHR-JFK with DTCI, Clubhouse and more dedicated crew. I'm not being critical, your review was great!

An interesting comparison and there will always be variances such as I have experienced good and bad crew across all airlines. what I do find difficult to understand as a former VS gold and now a BA silver ( more due to my residence in Spain and the ease of using one World) the way we have to either be VS or BA loyalists. To me they are both fine British Airlines and I am proud to fly both. They both have their strengths and weaknesses but we need both to be successful to ensure competitiveness and choice for the future. So for me its down to price, timings and availability as both business products on board fulfil my brief.

So for me its down to price, timings and availability as both business products on board fulfil my brief.

I agree. if I look back on my last half dozen TATL flights very few have been on VS and that has been down to price.

If I can fly LHR-ZRH-BOS or ORD on LX in J for £200-300 cheaper than VS them I'm going to do it (and that's not using an AMS trick scenario).

Ditto a £300 'saving' flying DL LHR-JFK.

Ditto on BA earlier this year (with one leg on the BA01)

Then again I have no status of any meaning in any of the FF programmes I am a member of and I don't do enough flying to move up a level even if I did just stick to one for me my loyalty to the bank of Tonty outweighs loyalty to an airline.

And in my experience other airlines do provide a better service (especially food) than VS.

[honey lamb]

I really looked forward to this trip report, given that tonty had failed to post his report on the same flight earlier in the year. v(

OK, so my observations on your scoring based on my experiences on BA and VS in recent times. For starters, you are really comparing apples with oranges. OK, so VS to MCO has only 14 seats compared with 32 CW seats on this flight. However there is a difference when the plane has only one cabin compared with a three-cabin flight when staff may have to be re-deployed to other cabins because of additional demands.

While I can understand the convenience of LCY over LHR for you, not everyone has that luxury of choice and that really is a personal judgement and may work for you but not for others and really skews the score from that perspective.

On a flight with 32 passengers in a premium cabin it is easier to cater for that number of passengers than for a full CW LHR-JFK flight where the likelihood of getting your meal, the choice of drinks and the quality of the meal is bound to be better. Quite frankly on my recent flights in CW with BA the food has been dire, the service impersonal and the interaction with the crew poor. As someone posted earlier, it was as if you wanted BA to win

Would I try that service? I was always intrigued about it but as I can fly to JFK from either DUB or SNN with pre-clearance - well I'm not particularly interested in Avios points (or VS miles for that matter), so why should I?

I work at LCY and have always wondered what the general view of the JFK route is , Just out of interest did you manage to use the club world bag drop in the entrance hall?

As someone posted earlier, it was as if you wanted BA to win

I struggle to draw that conclusion myself -- seems pretty balanced to me, and he does make it clear that his view is affected by his starting location and desire to minimise lounge time.

I enjoyed the post and thought it was fair.

As someone posted earlier, it was as if you wanted BA to win

I struggle to draw that conclusion myself -- seems pretty balanced to me, and he does make it clear that his view is affected by his starting location and desire to minimise lounge time.

Me too, seems to me as though flabound was being quite balanced.