V-Flyer

Hi all, anyone know the reason for Barbarella's delay today out of LGW.

Appears a 45 minute delay just curious as I am on the 27 next Sunday and was wondering as normally a good on time / early performance?

Thanks

reasons they include delay in inbound / weather / ATC / airport issues / delayed flight crew / delayed catering / delayed passengers / iddues with bags

The Gatwick fleet is really going to the dogs. I am on VS43 next week, and this is the last LGW flight I will book until the A350s come on stream. There have been way too many issues recently for my liking, and the fleet seems too old and stretched to be relied upon.

Looking at expertflyer the average delay on a Tuesday is

VS027 34 mins
VS015 27 mins

VS045 23 mins

IMHO, that's pretty good.

For comparison, the BA2037 to MCO is 36 min late on average

David

To add to what has already been said, irrespective of any delay departing, weather conditions can often result in time being made up.

However getting through Immigration after arriving at MCO can be a bit of a lottery. A golden rule is not to plan / book anything specific on your first evening in Orlando as you can sometimes take over 2 hours to get through due to the number of overseas flights that arrive at around the same time

buns

buns wrote:To add to what has already been said, irrespective of any delay departing, weather conditions can often result in time being made up.

However getting through Immigration after arriving at MCO can be a bit of a lottery. A golden rule is not to plan / book anything specific on your first evening in Orlando as you can sometimes take over 2 hours to get through due to the number of overseas flights that arrive at around the same time

buns

Yup I'm 100% with you on that one buns after going through MCO around 15-20 times in last 10 years have seen the decline and especially more of later years becoming more and more slow and you can't detemrine if it's going to be good or bad. Even if there is loads of cbp officers on you can't get through much quicker. I had considered global entry but sometimes where the crews are in the same line as the global entry it makes it slower so have avoided going down that route. Some improvements need to be made with the CBP process.

On more of a positive only 3 days until check in.

Another question slightly to the side if I don't have upper class but am looking to go into the upper class lounge and want to pay for entry (with capacity being taken into account) do we know how much this normally is?

I went through MCO in Mid-May this year after arriving on VS15 (Approx. 5pm local) and i found it to be a breeze compared to the same journey in May 2014.

It was still an hour from leaving PE cabin to getting out to car hire so not great but a 100% improvement on 3 years ago...

benchsmith wrote:
Another question slightly to the side if I don't have upper class but am looking to go into the upper class lounge and want to pay for entry (with capacity being taken into account) do we know how much this normally is?

Virgin Holidays charge £55 per person for the LGW Clubhouse or £67 per person for the Heathrow Clubhouse.

I have a friend on this flight. The reason for the delay was the air con broke on the plane. So they sat in it for 2 hours before a woman passed out and everyone disembarked while they sorted the issue! I think they finally left about 6:30 so a 5 1/2 hour delay!!!! Obviously this is very out of the ordinary and not just a normal delay.