This is a Trip Report from the Economy cabin
Ground Staff
Food & Drink
Entertainment
Seat
Cabin Crew
It was a Sunday and obvious engineering works were happening in and around London. Since Virgin moved flights to the caribbean from LGW to LHR for little over 3 months, my normal ride to Gatwick was less than enthusiastic to drive me to Heathrow to catch my flight, so it was commuting via train I had to endure. Surprisingly it was business as usual for the other londoners as it still felt like a normal day of the week with people pushing and pulling luggage around struggling up stairs oystering in and through the barriers. The flight was scheduled to leave at 12:50pm from LHR and it was 8:15am I left South Eastern London.
Virgin was offering Flying Club members a first class upgrade on the Heathrow Express for the price of a normal standard class ticket, if they booked their train tickets via the Virgin Atlantic Flying Club site. This price came to 14.73 and the 15th was the last day it could be booked. However tempting this seemed, I decided not to 'splash out' at the oppurtunity and take the Oyster heathrow underground trip instead.
This decision back-fired however, as the underground was closed for stations to Heathrow, and the only alternative online and at the stations were to take the 14.50 standard class Heathrow Express trip to the airport. What an idiot I thought, until I reached Paddington and they were offering Oyster users the travel free on the Heathrow express for the lack of alternative routes so I saved 14.73 which I used on-board on some retail therapy (new 747 autographed by Richard Branson model aircraft)
Reached Heathrow in good time 10:20 which was the scheduled time to reach the airport for bag drop for the flight. Was greeted by the friendly host, who, despite the plethora of eager passengers baiting her every move, was able to point me in the right direction which was amongst the same 'eagertons' who seemed to be growing more and more impatient as the queues seemed to be going nowhere.
This is a good time to point out that the new Virgin Heathrow Terminal design look good only, but the ease of bag drop looks appealing from your computer screen but the actual logistics prove to be unpopular with myself and the rest of the Virgin travellers. The new check in area is fantastic and the layout superb but for the near 14 flights Virgin was checking in at once the thousands of people all checked in already and waiting to drop bags still present you with the same situation you were trying to avoid by introducing online check in (eliminating queues)
After waiting for a group of 7 ahead of me all being checked in at once to move on, the actual innovation in the online check-in system was apparent to me when my bag drop took only 35 seconds and I was making way to the security checks awaiting me up the stairs through departures. This went quickly and effortlessly.
Having some time to kill in the waiting area and duty free shopping I took some time out to have a full english breky and a cheeky pint. soon enough I was in a rush to get to gate 27 where the English Rose (I think?) was awaiting. I was still hopeful that by some miracle since the flights were moved to LHR that the route was being serviced by the 747 V:Port aircraft, not so lucky.
Boarding time had long past we we were all still in the little holding area waiting for the boarding to be started. There was no sign of movement as the cabin crew themselves were all gathered waiting just like us in the Gate 27 Lounge for the aircraft to be ready. After about a 40 min wait we were allowed on-board I was directed to my seat and waited for the flight to push back and take off. This didn't happen for a further 39 mins as 2 passengers who didn't show had to be off-loaded, (their bags) and air traffic control were giving this delayed flight a further 30 mins before the next slot out.
In these situations where main door is still open and APU power is still in use the only thing to do is to get acquainted with the persons next to you, talk on your mobile, peruse the pending entertainment, select your retail therapy and queue for the loo which I found myself doing to pass the time. It was 1 hour and 9 mins delayed before we were in the air and an EFT of 8Hr08Mins a full 37 mins below the ticketed flying time of 8Hr45Mins.
After an unusually turbulent takeoff, I think due to the jet stream of the sister Virgin 747 taking off directly in-front of us we were quickly cruising at FL270 climbing to FL370 and the seat belt sign came off.
To the tune of the usual belts unbuckling of eager cabin crew and seasoned travellers we were off to what i thought to be an uneventful but busy flight. They were 435 passengers on board and 15 crew so the flight was extremely full. I decided to walk around alot more on this flight as I'd spent enough cross atlantic journeys sat in one position and occassionally wiggling my feet to stop them sleeping. They weren't much worth seeing movies on as most I'd seen already and VTV2 wasn't working for some reason which had Family Guy on repeat, which would have drawn my attention, so this encouraged me to do the walking around I had promised myself.
We were fed more than usual on this flight
S - Beverage and Pretzils
M - Afternoon Tea choice of Vegetarian, Beef and Chicken
T - Tea and Coffee
S - Ice cream
F - Evening supper
T - Tea and coffee
S - Cookies and Chocolate
I was in a row of loan travellers as well so we got together and had a round of 5 Heineken and Stella each for the duration of the flight.
there was no turbulance no emergencies, sickness nothing to report. I had a conversation with the FSM about the roll out of V:Port across the fleet of LGW aircraft. His input was that they will have to take the aircraft one by one out of service replacing them with an A340 to do the leather seat and V:Port upgrade on the LGW route this would be done next year. Was abit disappointed at the news as this means another year of waiting as I travel this route more than 3 times a year on Virgin and would like to see the system before my job stops me travelling between the two.
Retail Therapy came around and as I said before from the train ticket saving I got myself the aircraft model new on the magazine. Sooner than expected we were being warned of 10 mins to landing and beginning of the descent. Cabin Crew trying to clean up, folk making the final restroom rush and my new found group trying to get in the last of 5 cheeky mls.
We landed an hour late just 5 mins before the manchester flight I think VS077 or VS078 was in Barbados. It was great seeing the two jets parked next to each other on the tarmac somewhat reassuring for no apparent reason that Virgin Atlantic was very vibrant and visible on the Paradise Island.
