This is a Trip Report from the Upper Class cabin
Ground Staff
Food & Drink
Entertainment
Seat
Cabin Crew
Quick TR from my flight over.
Wanted to capture a few points while they were still fresh in my head. I may pad this out with detail later...
Interesting Addlee pickup issue. Booked the pickup as usual, using the usual company charge card (which isn't registered to my home address). Just as my alarm went off, I got a text from Addlee saying my payment had been 'flagged', and I needed to contact them. Seems they have had some chargeback issues due to credit card fraud. Took about 10 mins on the phone to sort it, but they still went with the original method of payment.
Went through the Upper Class Wing check-in trial with the Addlee driver. All very smooth and efficient, indistinguishable from the service you would normally get using Tristar once you've phoned the car registration number through to UC Support. Through to Clubhouse in no time, shower, brekky (eggs benedict), hair trim, coffee, mojito, emails, another (much, much stronger) mojito, and before I knew it, it was time to get the plane. CH was moderately busy - the area in the glassed off bit behind the bar is proving very popular - a sign that lounges should have more windows if ever there was one - but the service was very good throughout.
Interestingly, Saudi Arabian Airways are now sharing the Clubhouse as well. Some of their clientele are rather 'strict' in their observation of Islamic culture, so it's an interesting, if somewhat ironic sight to see women fully veiled in the Niqab sat in a bar where people are quaffing cocktails at 9am.
Off to get 16 to reacquaint myself with G-VHOT (not seen for a while, seen much more of FAB and ROC recently) for the flight to SFO. (Again, G-VBIG got dragged off by a tug somewhere after disgorging it's load. It's always being dragged off by a tug. What is it with that plane?)
All I'll say is that the guys down at Filton who did the paint job on G-VHOT recently did a fantastic job. Really sparkly and shiny! Looked fantastic on the outside. Priority boarding worked really well at this gate and I was rapidly on-board.
If only the same could be said for the condition of the inside... especially the toilets. Yeeeuch. Remember, this is before we'd even taken off. We're talking thick ingrained grime here (along with a missed discarded earplug from the inbound flight), down in the usual dirt traps in the corners on the floor, in the shelves, and on the handles.
It's not like it's anything out of the ordinary, it's an area that should be scrubbed spotless whenever the aircraft receives a deep clean, and so obviously isn't.
Also, I think Virgin's choice of interior surfaces give them a handicap in this area, often being more complicated to clean properly - such as the textured floor covering in the toilets which harbours dirt, and some elements in the suite, such as the leather wall which gets pen-marked a lot.
What annoys me even more is that I highlighted exactly these problems over a year ago, clearly explaining where the dirt traps are, directly to the VS managers responsible for aircraft presentation.
It's sad to see that they seem to have done exactly zilch about it.
The approach to dirt inside planes needs to be 'Someone is about to sit here for a very long time. They will find whatever dirt there is to find during that time.'
The suite wasn't that bad, no surprises in the document pocket or armrest, and no ingrained grime in the gaps where the leather meets the painted surface, but there were some of those weird red marks back again, and there was that hard lump part way up the back rest (like a piece of the seat framework can be felt through the cushioning).
There were also a lot of signs of touch-up painting of the painted surface, though I suppose this is better than it being visibly chipped, and the leather on the fixed-armrest side of the suite looked rather worn (but no pen marks).
Otherwise the seat was fine throughout the flight. The armrest stayed locked up (the last couple would sink down with light pressure), and everything else seemed to work okay.
We pushed back on time, with what seemed to be a fairly full load and taxied off to 27L, finally getting wheels up around 1155 - everything seemed to be stopped for about 5 minutes while the runway was checked, this is a regular thing at Heathrow, to make sure the runway surface remains free of contamination by foreign objects (such as bits of metal), and then a string of planes were launched in rapid succession. A BA 747 went just in front of us - I wondered if it was their SFO flight and we would have to chase them all the way to the immigration queue!
On the takeoff roll, there was an almighty crash from further back. It turns out that the PE galley was not properly secured and things had broken loose.
Inflight service seemed slow. Poor attention to detail, such as pasta bowl (pretty naff) served with knife and fork rather than fork and spoon. Was served a cup of tea when I asked for coffee, and the crew member originally tried to make out that it was coffee, until I suggested it was either tea or dishwater and she should try it.
When it finally became coffee, it was slopped in the saucer (and nothing to wipe it up with, so it dripped everywhere).
UA crews, especially the older ones, almost always serve your coffee/tea with a napkin placed in the saucer to catch the inevitable drips.
It's this sort of experience that I think the younger VS crews lack.
Salmon salad with spelt was okay. Nice to see some greenery on the menu ex-LHR, actually. I didn't fancy any of the main meals, so I went for the pasta light bite, which was supposed to be with chorizo (two tiny slivers), tomato (a couple of chunks), basil (couldn't see any...), and olives (which there were a lot of). It was a nice idea, a simple pasta dish, but it was badly done. I should have probably asked for a double portion of salad, and just stuck with that.
Tried both desserts, as I couldn't make my mind up which I wanted to try. Both were okay-ish, the roulade quite sickly. The coulis which should have been served with the roulade was not loaded.
IFE worked mostly okay, but the Inflight Trivia has been unavailable on almost every VS 744 operated flight that I've travelled on recently (it was working on the 346 on the way back from EWR last month). Is this a known problem? If so, what is being done to fix it?
Rest of the flight passed pretty uneventfully.
Other than coming around asking if we wanted duty free, which consisted of a quick zip through the cabin waving the retail therapy magazine, I hardly saw the FSM, and she seemed far more interested in talking to some people (possibly family) on staff travel who were sat at the bar.
Don't remember the amenities basked being passed around either. Is it still there, did LSG just forget it (given they have to forget *something* on every flight, it seems) or has that been adiosed too?
I'll make one notable exception for the crew. The SCC member looking after the opposite aisle was fantastic when she was covering the whole cabin while the rest were on breaks. She was lovely. Everyone else just seemed to be going through the motions.
Didn't bother with the sandwiches with their 1980's fillings, and just had a cheese plate (served without a knife) and the scone which was decent. They did serve a nice little cinnamon swirly petit-four type thing with the coffee though.
We got smashing views of the far North of Canada, Mount St Helens, Mount Hood and Mount Shasta during the flight, the sky clearing at the right points, and the conditions were largely smooth throughout. There was the occasional wobble that would have had a trigger-fingered flight deck reaching for the seatbelt sign switch on other airlines, but the sign stayed off all the way from climbout to starting down into SFO.
Normal 'Down the Bay' with a right turn for 28R, and we landed pretty much on time. Had to wait for a Cathay 747 to push back out of the cul-de-sac at the International Terminal, which probably lost us 10-15 minutes.
Deserted immigration hall (having already processed all the AF and KLM pax that had arrived earlier), effcient CBP officer (I was at the desk for <2 mins), and working priority baggage (belt started up just as I got to it) meant that I was off to get the rental car by 2.30pm.
Overall, it was a decent flight, but it missed the niceties which make an Upper Class flight special, and the sheen was taken off by the dirt, the crap food, and iffy service.
What worked well:
* UCW trial check-in.
* Clubhouse service.
* Priority boarding (shock! horror!)
* Flight running on time.
* Priority baggage (and the whole SFO arrivals process).
What was okay, but could have been better:
* The service from the crew.
* The IFE.
* The seat.
What was poor, and needs to be improved:
* The dirty interior, especially the toilets.
* The food.
* The lack of amenities.
* The 'coffee'.
So, there you have it...
Probably the last outbound flight with VS for me this year. My next US trip in October will most likely be with UA.
Mike
