Page 1 of 1

VS188 BGI-LHR 25 JUN 22 (Economy)

PostPosted: 07 Nov 2022, 23:03
by VS075
Ground Staff
Food & Drink
Entertainment
Seat
Cabin Crew
After a wonderful 10 days in Barbados (besides the food poisoning), it was time to go home. We were the only flight out of BGI around the time of our flight and the last of the day, so check-in and security was pretty swift. After a mooch round the shops, I went to Subway for tea as I was keen to get as much sleep as I could as I had a 200 mile drive back north when we got back to LHR. Our aircraft that night was G-VUFO which landed from GND. Boarding commenced 20 minutes before departure in the more usual order.

After the doors closed, all the overhead lockers were opened and the crew sprayed some antiviral spray across the whole cabin (UN requirement was cited apparently?), safety video played and we were off.

The flight wasn't really eventful. I skipped the evening meal in favour of sleep and didn't really eat until the morning when I had coffee and a filled warm croissant with yogurt. After this flight, we both decided if we didn't fly PE or Upper then it would be Delight all the way as the tight legroom was noticeable on nightflights such as this. You might recall the lack of GF meal for my wife on the outbound flight. The cabin crew was able to access our booking from her iPad on that flight and booked her a GF meal for the return flight. This worked and a GF meal was provided.

We had a quick flight and, without being asked to hold, we landed about half an hour or so early. However, disembarkation would be a slow process. Firstly, as were on a remote stand (which the captain tried to say was a good thing because aircraft after us had to wait for a stand), they had to bring a set of stairs to the doors which took some time as the first set wasn't suitable for our A330. Secondly, paramedics were waiting to board to treat a passenger that had taken ill in Upper. I hope that person was OK. When we did start disembarkation, this was a slow process as there was only one bus available at the time which had to take passengers to the terminal first before coming back to take some more. When we eventually got off, a second bus had been mustered up.

A trek followed to the immigration hall which didn't take long and nor did the bags. LHR was in the news during our holiday for numerous luggage meltdowns and there was a lot of cases stacked up in the baggage reclaim hall, presumably from previous flights where passengers had been waiting for hours and given up.

We exited, joined the queue for a taxi back to the Renaissance to collect the car and start the drive home. Apart from a queue trying to get into Beaconsfield services for a drive thru coffee and joining the M42 in the West Midlands, it was an uneventful trip aided by further coffee from Norton Canes services on the M6 Toll.

As somebody who lives close to both MAN and LPL and keen to see VS restore MAN to pre-COVID levels of service, I don't think making the effort just to fly VS out of LHR is worth the effort. It's different if you're in Upper with all the perks that come with it or if you're flying to somewhere from LHR that isn't served from MAN such as BGI through the summer months when the only viable alternative is with BA (TUI and Aer Lingus don't operate in the summer either). That said, it was good to try VS out of LHR on a flight that isn't Little Red and sample the A330-300s before they exit the fleet in the coming couple of years.

Hope you enjoyed both TRs and apologies for any lapses in memory, but I think I got all the main points in!