VS046 JFK-LHR 21 DEC 10 (Upper Class)

This is a Trip Report from the Upper Class cabin

Ground Staff

Food & Drink

Entertainment

Seat

Cabin Crew

Considering all the problems with snow, I was surprised that my flight was relatively pain free, taking off more or less on time. The crew were fantastic - friendly and efficient considering the cabin was full.

I only have two quibbles, both relating to JFK:

Firstly, the check-in queues were very confusing and somehow there ended up with two Upper Class check-in queues - and the queues took time because of the number of stranded people trying to get on to any plane that was flying. The signage was unclear as to whether the Upper queue was to the left or the right of a ropeline. A queue had formed to the left, which i joined. However any form of queue is clearly too much for some who assume it can't be for Upper and a business man came a formed a second queue the other side of the ropeline. It all just added to the stress already being felt in the check-in hall. There were two supervisers standing around chatting to each other, but they hid as far away from the Upper Class queue mess as they could.

Second quibble is the wifi in the club house which had such a slow connection speed it was totally unusable. It might be because the lounge was full with lots of people trying to get online, but at a major hub like JFK surely this would be the norm.

So in conclusion, great onboard experience let down by JFK ground experience. The second time in 2010 I've flown the route and reached the same conclusion.

[HighFlyer]

You wouldn't be the first person to have experienced dismal ground staff at JFK, I have certainly seen similar when passing through their before. I guess in the event of serious delays or problems the ground staff are usually not to blame nor may they have any answers but they know that they are the usual recipients of the backlash from frustrated customers. Glad the cabin crew more than made up for the experience on the ground

Second quibble is the wifi in the club house which had such a slow connection speed it was totally unusable. It might be because the lounge was full with lots of people trying to get online, but at a major hub like JFK surely this would be the norm.

No the wifi in the JFK Clubhouse is always bad. The last time I was in there and the lounge was empty, it was still extremely slow.

No the wifi in the JFK Clubhouse is always bad. The last time I was in there and the lounge was empty, it was still extremely slow.

Quite - though the last time I was there (5th Dec) it was pretty good so I thought that the problems had been ironed out. Clearly not.

I think it is a little dependent on the number of people in the lounge - if you are in there for long enough and they call a VS flight (or one of the other ones that uses the lounge), the speed goes from so slow it is totally unusable to very slow that the frustration stops you using it!