VS020 SFO-LHR 30 Nov 07 (PE)

This is a Trip Report from the Premium Economy cabin

Ground Staff

Food & Drink

Entertainment

Seat

Cabin Crew

Aircraft : Tinker Belle
Seat 28A

Arrived from Denver on the United flight early, and was at the Virgin Checkin area at 12:30pm, as the flight now leaves at 17:30 the checkin would not open for another hour.

Managed to find a free Wifi router, by the name of Linksys, and picked up a few emails. Also determined that the inbound flight was expected early.

Around 12:50, one of the regular security screeners came out and re-organised all the barriers, what a long job that is ! He was done by 13:15, when the baggage handlers arrived. So at 13:20 I went and stood at the UC line, as I wanted to head into the Lounge and do some work.

At 13:25 the Security Screener came up to me, and at 13:30 it appeared the whole team of checkin staff came out, with as many agents as there were people in the Economy line.

Headed to the Lounge and was greeted by Claire, and settled down to my usual seat. Service was very slow, despite it being quiet, it took an age to get asked if I wanted anything to eat .

Claire came back to me and asked me if I had checked in (despite me giving her my boarding pass) and she asked me if the check in desks were open. As I was the first to check in at SFO that day, I guess I had surprised them by getting there so quickly, she did tell me they were looking after the Aer Lingus passengers earlier.

I did some work, accompanied by the usual Corona, and the Clubhouse sandwich, which was very tasty.

At 3pm, I was tapped on the shoulder by a colleague, who I did n't know was travelling, and I joined him and his manager for the rest of the time in the clubhouse. One of them mentioned that the flight out to SFO on Sunday was delayed by 3 hours on the tarmac at LHR due to a mechanical problem with an engine.

Had the Peach and Ice Cream and a few classes of Champagne, while catching up with my colleagues.

We were called to the gate by Claire walking round and letting people know the gate was ready, and this is much nicer than the PA announcement. We were called at 4:40pm for the 5:25pm flight

We headed down to find the gate completely empty and we walked straight on board, I did notice that there were 180 people on board and 72 left to board.

I sat at the bar while the remaining passengers arrived, and we closed the doors and pushed back 10 minutes early. With a flight time of 9 hours and 1 minute, we were due for an early landing. There were 2 empty UC seats, although 1 was held back as it had a defective table.

The seat belt lights came off very quickly and we were quickly served a drink, although the dinner took quite a while to come. I chose the Beef, which was very well presented and very tasty. They forgot to serve the hot towels.[V]

No welcome to the Gold members in PE this time[:(]

Also took a long time to clear the trays, and I settled down to have a sleep with 6 and a half hours to go until we land.
Breakfast was served with 90 minutes to go, and the fruit bowl was brought round as well [y]

There were good views of Ireland and the North East as we came in, we were told we had a 10 min hold, so I saw my house, a good 2 hours before I would get home !

Knowing we would land early, I did ask the FSM if that meant we would get a remote stand, and he said he did n't know, but he indicated early flights get remote stands on a rotation basis, so somedays it's BA's turn and somedays it's Virgin's.

We touched down eventually 30 minutes early, and were assigned to Gate 7. The JetWay was moved to L2, and then removed back to it's normal position (what was that all about) and we then left by means of L1.

The IRIS machine worked well, although one was not operational and by the time I got down to Belt 9, the bags were already going round.[^]

I only had to wait a few moments for my bag to come off, and this time my theory of attaching a UC tag to my bag in Denver paid off, as it looked like it had been put in the right bin this time. Often when transferring from a UA flight, they miss the Gold Card on it.

Overall a good flight, just not as good as the outbound one. It is worth noting, that there were a good 6 to 7 empty PE seats, and a whole bunch in Economy.

Not sure I'll be travelling in December, so no more TR's for a while from me.

What an insightful TR, thanks for taking the time out to post it [y]

Interesting that the 'gold welcome' still seems to be somewhat hit-and-miss...

GJ

No welcome to the Gold members in PE this time

I've never had a welcome in PE[n]

[buns]

Thanks for the TR[y][y]


Your experience at SFO: awaiting the check in, the check in itself and of course the Clubhouse stands testament as to why the airport scores so highly in the V-Flyer Best Airport category.

On the subject of Gold Member recognition, for the record, I have only once had the FSM acknowledge my status - and that was in UC.

buns

[honey lamb]

Interesting that Aer Lingus also uses the Clubhouse since they started their flights to SFO recently. I don't think, though, that I'll pass on VS in favour of EI

Originally posted by ukcobra


We headed down to find the gate completely empty and we walked straight on board, I did notice that there were 180 people on board and 72 left to board.

Great TR - thanks! Just out of curiosity - how does one notice exactly how many people are on board/yet to board?

J

great TR thanx, LOL i wouldn't know how many are left to board, unless we are waiting on 3 or 4 and then the ground crew would have to tell me.

Sometimes, and this is annoying for us, the hot towels are not loaded or there are only enough for upper, so it may not be the crews fault, they wouldn't normally forget as the towels are loaded into the PE galley on that config. But on the airbus i will admit to forgetting to do them, and instead we did them for landing lol.

[preiffer]

Originally posted by stars
Great TR - thanks! Just out of curiosity - how does one notice exactly how many people are on board/yet to board?

Look at the computer screen when you hand your boarding pass in. You'll see two numbers - one in a green box (passengers boarded) and one in a red box (passengers still to board) [:)]

Originally posted by johnvscrew
Sometimes, and this is annoying for us, the hot towels are not loaded or there are only enough for upper, so it may not be the crews fault, they wouldn't normally forget as the towels are loaded into the PE galley on that config. But on the airbus i will admit to forgetting to do them, and instead we did them for landing lol.

Out of interest, on the new LHR 744 config, is the #2 galley dedicated to serving the PE cabin now? That should help, as on the Airbus you're sharing the galley with J, and you seem to be climbing over the top of each other quite a bit!

Mike

Originally posted by ukcobra
I did some work, accompanied by the usual Corona, and the Clubhouse sandwich, which was very tasty.

You mean - it's back?????

Oh frabjous day! That'll set me up nicely for my flight back next week.

Worst decision they ever made was ditching that.

Originally posted by mike-smashing

Originally posted by johnvscrew
Sometimes, and this is annoying for us, the hot towels are not loaded or there are only enough for upper, so it may not be the crews fault, they wouldn't normally forget as the towels are loaded into the PE galley on that config. But on the airbus i will admit to forgetting to do them, and instead we did them for landing lol.

Out of interest, on the new LHR 744 config, is the #2 galley dedicated to serving the PE cabin now? That should help, as on the Airbus you're sharing the galley with J, and you seem to be climbing over the top of each other quite a bit!

Mike

I read somewhere else, Mike, that it is, which is potentially good for service if VS get the number of crew right (but still no loos).

Amd johnvscrew - you make many comments about others 'forgetting' to load things, missing parts of the service, FSMs forgetting to say hi to Aus, missing little bits of extra etc. You sound fab and I wish all CC were like you, but I think it sounds nice the way you say it and actually it's symptomatic of poor delivery management, sorry dude [:(].