This is a Trip Report from the Upper Class cabin
Ground Staff
Food & Drink
Entertainment
Seat
Cabin Crew
Check in was fast and friendly and security was a breeze, I was through and into the Air New Zealand Lounge within 15 minutes[y]. The Lounge itself was about 1/3 full mainly with passengers travelling on the Air New Zealand 002. Food was OK, there was a selection of cold meats, salad, fruit and a several kinds of cakes and biscuits. This time I remembered to borrow some real coke for the flight to save me from that nasty Virgin Cola. By the time the flight was called the lounge had filled up, top marks to the staff for keeping the food counter full and drinks cabinets well stocked.
Flight was called for boarding around 5.15 and by 5.45 all 220 passengers were onboard, UC was full all but for one seat next to me (16K). Push back was on time, however, due to LAX having taxiway closures we never took off until almost 6.30.
The FSM was the same Italian gentleman I had on my last flight from Washington back in March, like before he was seen in the cabin, however, he never really interacted with the passengers. One thing for sure he took no nonsense, firstly he announced that there were spare rows in economy and that passengers were able to spread out, however, he said that he did not want greedy passengers taking more than 2 seats each and to show respect to your fellow passengers. Secondly, when a passenger stood up before the seat belt signs were switched off he asked on the PA what part of the seatbelt light dont you understand?[B)]
Drink and Dinner orders were taken at the same time, I opted for the Baby Scallop Salad, the Chicken Cacciatore for main and the Sticky Toffee Pudding for dessert all of which were good but not fantastic.
Lights were soon turned off after dinner and the cabin crew began to make up passengers beds, I was one of the last to settle as I had started writing this trip report, it was at this point they realised they had not loaded enough sleep suites[n].
After managing to get less than a couple of hour sleep I returned by bed to the seat position and went and sat at the bar (its 10am by now), no sign of any crew members so I made myself a drink. After around 15 minutes one appeared and asked if I wanted anything to which I declined. Most of the cabin was still asleep so I flicked through V-port but nothing really took my fancy.
After a couple of circles in the hold we landed into a cold and snowy Heathrow ( 9L) around 10 minutes late, completed the marathon from gate 22, luckily there was only 1 person in front of me at the Iris machine. Luggage followed about 5 minutes later and my bags were 4th and 5th off of the carousel. All that remained was to catch the Heathrow Hoppa to the Thistle to collect my car.
Now heres thing that spoilt the flight and also made sleeping very difficult. Before you read this I must point out that I dont want to start a children in UC debate Im just trying to state the facts and my observations for this TR.[ii]
Sitting opposite in 15G & 16G were a mum and dad with 13 month old twins, each had a toddler strapped to them for take off, despite the delay on take off they were well behaved only making the occasional baby noise. Shortly after take off the lady informed the FSM that she was going to make the bed up in the seat next to me so the twin could sleep. Unfortunately the babies had other ideas and every time they were put down they decided to scream in a way that only babies can. That said I cannot fault the parents as they were trying there hardest to get the kids to settle, the mother was also very apologetic. Finally they both settled only to be woken again by the seat belt sign being switched on and the fact that they had to be reattached to the parents. Throughout the night one of the twins would not sleep and spent most of the night crying[:0]. The mother was constantly walking up and down trying everything to get the baby to be quiet but to no avail, finally she ended up walking around the bar area.I think you can guess how this is going to end,1 hour before landing the baby fell asleep only for the other one to wake up and produce even more noise.[V]
If Im honest (sorry to any parents) this really did put a downer on the flight for me and some of the other passengers. I later spoke to the passenger in 15K whilst walking to immigration he told me that he had moved back into PE for a couple of hour during the night to escape from it all. Dont know what else to really say its a bit of a tough one, not sure if the FSM could have done more[?]
Putting that to one side, overall the flight was OK, the crew and food were not as good as the outbound but nothing to complain about.
-Steve
