This is a Trip Report from the Premium Economy cabin
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Had been visiting family up in New Hampshire, and travelled back from there by C&J buses - only 1hr 15 to the airport, made better by the fact you don't go through central Boston and therefore less chance for being caught in traffic jams. The airport was pretty empty when we arrived and straight up to check-in. Hadn't done on line check-in as were interested in whether we do an 'on the day upgrade' to Upper....it was available for a small fee of 999 each - decided that it was a little bit expensive. Club house invites were issued, and we headed off to security. Long queues and tired my luck by flashing the Gold Card and were ushered into the Business/First class queue, which saved a little bit of time (eaten up by a rather strange man who having put his bags up thought that a TSA employee would come and escort him through!).
Headed straight off to the new Clubhouse as had really been looking forward to seeing this. First impression - VERY impressed. There are good photos of the lounge on here which show it off better than I could describe. However a few comments from me. The bar seemed well stocked, although all I had was Verve champagne and sparkling water. The champagne appeared to be replenished regularly, although it is all self-service. In terms of food there is hot soup (last night - Clam Chowder or Minestrone), a deli of salads, meats and cheeses and a selection of deserts. There also some prepared salads in a separate chiller, along with other bits and pieces. The deli and soups are served to you, but otherwise it is self-service. The reason that the only hot food option is soup is that they don't have permission to install the necessary extractor hobs to cook it - little bit of a shame really. The other plus point is that there are now toilets in the lounge - for some reason 2 males and 1 female. The downpoint is that there isn't a shower - not a real problem, but it would have been a really great addition. One of the male toilets is very large, so I suppose they could think about adding a shower in the future if people commented on that. I think there is wifi available in the lounge, although I didn't have the laptop with me. Maybe because it is new, there seemed to be a few of visitors from VS ground crew having a look around at the lounge yesterday evening.
Anyway back to the flight home now. Boarding call in the lounge almost spot on the time we were told when we entered (and there was a 10 minute warning in case you needed a champagne top-up!).
Pretty full flight in PE (1 seat free) and a handful in Economy. One of the downpoints of the A340-300 series in PE is that there isn't a dedicated toilet for the cabin. Pre-take off drinks were served (soft in glasses, sparkling wine in plastic tumblers - think that they had forgot to load the small PE wine glasses). Take-off pretty much on time, and then settled back with a book for a little bit before some sleep. Drinks were served from the front galley, bought out on trays with wine served in UC large wine glasses - looks much better than the small ones they usually use. I tried my luck to see if I could get something other than the Chardonnay blend offered normally, but was politely told that PE passengers could only have that wine option (just not a Chardonnay fan, but it wasn't too bad).
I have no idea what the food was like (both dinner and pre-landing snack), since I had eaten a large Olive Garden lunch and then in the lounge as well (it would have been rude not to try out the lounge food). Looked not too bad, although someone else on the flight might be able to comment more on this. Slept for about 3 hours on and off, which isn't bad given the flight time of 5 hours 40 odd. Was a little nervous on boarding as there were 3 children in PE, but they were as good as gold and quiet pretty much all of the flight.
Although we arrived over London early, there was the usual circuits over SW London before an approach from the East. Not much to see due to the cloud on the way down. Not much hanging around on the ground waiting to get to the gate, and then the long walk to IRIS (very efficient - maybe a little bit as we waited a while for anyother passengers to arrive and the bags). Once they had arrived, off to Revivals for a shower and some breakfast (really quiet in here this morning) and then the HEX to work.
All in all a good flight since I managed to get a decent amount of sleep, made all the better by the new Club House experience.
