VS006 MIA-LHR 7 Mar 07 (PE)

This is a Trip Report from the Premium Economy cabin

Ground Staff

Food & Drink

Entertainment

Seat

Cabin Crew

A slightly different experience to the outbound flight here!

Again, I checked in on-line - on the day of travel. On arrival at MIA, the bag drop queue was quite long, but we checked in at the PE desk. This is where the trouble started. We checked the bags in, and I queried the seat change from 71 A&C to 76 A&C. The assistant said that the system was showing my wife as a paraplegic and no wheelchair users were allowed to use the 747 upper deck or be seated in the emergency exit rows. I disputed this, as I had only requested assistance to the gate, rather than on the aircraft itself. He was having none of it. He started quoting FAA rules, and when I asked how it was that we had the requested seats ex-LHR, he then said that the aircraft had been changed. When I asked if this aircraft had been changed to an A340 or a 747 from Gatwick or Manchester, he said that it had come from LHR. When I said that I thought that all LHR aircraft had the same seating configuration, he reverted to the basic '...the computer says no' mode. The supervisor was no more helpful, and as it was obvious that there was no point in arguing, we eventually settled for seats downstairs. This is probably one of the few occasions were someone has had a disability upgraded - something I shall be taking up with Virgin later.

TSA departure procedures were as expected, onerous, but slicker than they were last year.

Boarding G-VWOW (Cosmic Girl) was delayed, and we eventually found our revised seats 76 A&C adjacent to the galley. From the quietest seats to some of the noisiest. The cabin crew were not deliberately trying to create a disturbance, but it was certainly not such a pleasant flight experience as the outbound one.

Food was again certainly above average with chicken and mashed sweet potato, corn and beans providing a toothsome morsel. I was not offered any hot bread.

All VPORT programming was available.

The flight was smooth and with a strong tailwind, we arrived at LHR early, and very surprisingly we didn't have to stack. Immigration and baggage claim formalities were processed quickly, and we went from disembarkation to waiting for the taxi in 40 minutes.

Next flight will be economy to JFK in April, it will be interesting to compare the difference.

- Ian Hughes

Thank you for a wonderful trip report and welcome to V-flyer.

Thanks for your rtn TR. Shame about the check in staff [n]

Welcome to V-Flyer [y]

Thank you for the TR. [y]

Doesn't it just drive you mad when you have flown out with no problmes yet on the way back all the Check in staff want to do is argue with you!![V]

Thanks for the report - again!![y]

Doesn't it just drive you mad when you have flown out with no problems yet on the way back all the Check in staff want to do is argue with you!!

Extremely - particularly when I had the on-line check in seat confirmation in my hand and showed it to him! I'm not one quick to anger (despite the reputation of red-heads)but his attitude made my blood boil. I had terrible trouble keeping a cool head in the face of this moron. He couldn't think for himself despite the evidence to the contrary of what the computer was showing.

It also seems endemic to MIA and not just to Virgin. I've also had problems returning from there when flying with AA. I'm not sure if this is anything to do with the fact that Virgin have outsourced their check in workforce to Swissport, and their staff don't have the same corporate knowledge and 'pride' (for want of a better word) than a regular Virgin employee.

I've sent an e-mail to Virgin informing them of the incident. As it all happened in the past, I doubt if there will be any restitution. I have asked for them to check that my wife's condition is not listed as full paraplegic, so that should we be able to fly PE again, then we could use the upper deck of the 747.

In reality I think this is probably the best I can hope for.

- Ian