This is a Trip Report from the Economy cabin
Ground Staff
Food & Drink
Entertainment
Seat
Cabin Crew
Well here goes on the return leg of my first TR! Its even more late than the outbound so apologies for that more on the late thing to come!
Sadly after a great drive down the coast highway and a few days in sunny LA, the grim reality of the end of our holiday was upon us. After a surprisingly quick trip from the Crowne Plaza Beverly Hills (nice place) we found ourselves in the rather quiet check in area. Once again I hadnt been able to do OLCI the night before for whatever reason.
Unfortunately flight 24 wasnt open yet so we had to wait half an hour or so (found a Starbucks in arrivals). After a short wait we were finally checked in by a nice, good natured chap and got our pre-allocated seats of 38A&C. Security was deserted and off into departures. Bought some sweets and a drink each. We managed to find a quiet spot in the gate being used for VS8, which was now fully boarded and watched as the flight left early.
VS23 was late landing so VS24 showed a 10 min delay, nothing major. We saw the aircraft land from our seats and disappear out of view to the other end of the airfield. Unfortunately this is where the problems began. First the gate changed, then the chap who seemed to be in charge of the ground staff announced a minimum 2 hour delay, but with no explanation. Avianca, on the next gate, immediately offered their passengers $20 each in food coupons when their flight was also delayed by the same time. I asked the VS staff if this was available, no we dont do food vouchers was the response, so we had to use our credit card to buy some food as we had run out of US$.
Two hours passed and none of the ground staff were anywhere to be found, so we decided to have a stroll to see what we could find. All the flights were delayed at this point and nothing was moving. We happened across the VS cabin crew in McDonalds who were really friendly and said the delay was due to a total failure with all the customs computers in LAX, this meant that no passengers could pass through immigration, and as the immigration hall was full, passengers (including those on VS23 were being held on their aircraft at remote stands). At this point I realised that the whole airport must be a total mess and would take ages to clear the backlog.
Finally at about 3 hours delay the VS23 passengers disembarked and then about half an hour later the VS24 crew were bussed to the aircraft. Boarding was announced at about 4 hours delay, and everyone jumped up expectantly. The gate agent started processing the priority boarders, ripping their boarding cards and sending them down the stairs to what we thought were waiting busses. Unfortunately there were no busses, they were all on the other side of the airport unloading other aircraft (apparently Air China were on the ground for 5 hours with passengers on board) so boarding was abandoned. The bloke in charge was totally out of his depth and the level of communication was non-existent. We got more info from Air France on the next gate! By this time most of the passengers were sprawled out on the floor, kids asleep and tempers fraying. I suggested to one of the VS staff that if there were no busses, why didnt they bring the plane to us? I got a pretty gormless response. I must admit that I did lose my rag slightly with the ground staff at this point basically because of their total lack of initiative and the dreadful leadership of the bloke in charge. Lo and behold about an hour later he announced that the crew on board the aircraft were trying to get a gate from ATC. When pressed by passengers he confessed that they were running out of hours and we might not get out tonight.
Finally, at about 2.30am the leader announced our new gate and over we trooped. Then he announced that boarding would start in about 10 minutes. Cue a big groan from all passengers, to which he responded with just be we have a gate over the PA before hiding behind the scenes again, very unprofessional.[n]
Boarding took a good half hour, no row by row or priority whatsoever, just a free-for-all. Most of the passengers were too tired to care at this point. Once all were aboard however, it became clear how tight the crews hours were, as the time from doors closing to take off was as quick as Ive ever seen it. We took off at about 3.15am, roughly 6 hours late.
Most of the passengers were asleep immediately, but dinner was still served which felt rather odd at that time of the morning! I slept intermittently, watched a couple of films, V:Port crashed when I tried to use the I-Map which was a bit annoying but the very polite stewardess came and re-set it for my seat. The flight was quite short (about 9 hours) and I cant really remember too much about it other than feeling how strange it was to be flying east through the daylight, with all the window blinds down and the cabin in totally dark night mode.
Chatted to a few cabin crew, who were all really nice people and remarkably communicative since they had been on the aircraft for a good few hours before the passengers arrived.
Had a smooth flight and approached LHR from the east, landing over Central London. By this point it was dark again so there wasnt a fantastic amount to see.
Once we parked we were off quite quickly as we were near the front (after PE and UC) and made a beeline for immigration which wasnt too bad by US standards (about a half hour wait). Glad we were near the front of the plane as we were desperate to get out of there! After the usual long hike to immigration our bags were off pretty quickly, and then off home to bed.
Was happy with the flight itself and thought the crew did a superb job in the circumstances, and were very attentive with plenty of water runs etc. Shame about the ground staff though!
Always planning a trip somewhere!
