This is a Trip Report from the Upper Class cabin
Ground Staff
Food & Drink
Entertainment
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Cabin Crew
Aircraft Back : Forgotten - A340-600 with new PE seats Reg Oct/Nov 2006 ?
Travelled Monday 9th April with my family. It takes twice as much time to get to the airport with my wife, 2 boys and infant daughter than it does when I'm on my own. 2 Hours from Reading to the Clubhouse. This morning it took 45 mins.
My youngest son came down with something, and was travel sick in the Taxi, at the Security line, and after I got everyone into the club house. My wife was impressed with the CH, but due to the limited time, we could not take advantage of any of the services.
We were allocated a bulkhead row, with the sky cot, and this was the first time I have travelled in Y for 6 months, all my other trips with Virgin have been in PE. I was interested to observe the service, and paid partiular attention to my wife's side of the plane vs mine.
The side of the plane I was on (we had the middle 4 seats) was looked after very poorly. The girl on my side, was miserable, mumbled, and during the 10.5 hour flight to LAX only did 1 drink run, whereas on the other side, cheery, pleasant and did 3 drink runs. My crew member clearly gave the impression she did n't want to be working that particular bank holiday.
It really does irk me when I see this, as it is so unlike Virgin crew to be so ordinary.
We arrived on time, the priority baggage at LAX did not work, with our bags coming off after some regular bags. The stroller came off much later too.
I dropped the family off on the 18th, and they came back without me, I believe that day, the plane was late leaving, and then made up the time going to the UK , but then waited for over an hour for a gate at LHR.
I came back on the 26th, I did n't realise until it was a little later, that i could by pass the waiting Economy passangers waiting for their Security Check, it was n't that clear. I upgraded to Upper at checkin, I must have been lucky, as the Upper cabin was full when we took off.
The service was very good, I did n't have anything to eat, as I took advantage of the reasonable selection of food in the Air New Zealand lounge, with a good selection of drinks and food, with free WiFi, it is not a bad lounge.
With a full flight, I did not expect to be lucky to get a treatment, but I did ask to be woken up, which I was woken up late into the flight after only just getting to sleep, however, the shoulder massage did help me get back off to sleep. I did see a few people get priority treatment, some sort of voucher ?
Landing was 10 mins late, but coming into T3 on a Friday was a new experience, from LANDING to being outside waiting for my Taxi, was
20 mins.
And that was with all the moving walkways turned off.
Overall, a good flight out, excellent service coming back. The rating is for the UC flight back.
Mark
