This is a Trip Report from the Economy cabin
Ground Staff
Food & Drink
Entertainment
Seat
Cabin Crew
Anyway the journey started early in the morning with a taxi then train to Gatwick. We wanted to avoid rush hour at London Bridge which did mean we would have quite a lot of time to kill at the airport. As we were silver members we could have gone to the premium economy check in, but as happened when we went UC the economy was completely free and went straight through that. We were offered more expensive tickets to have exit seats or the ones with a bit more leg room, but I knew the flight was light and thought we would take our chances. The guy at checkin was a bit of a jobsworth and they seemed extremely officious about the carry on weight, however ours was fine.
We were directed to go upstairs through security there, which can be a sneaky quick route if they hadn’t made everyone go there. Whereas it took us a good half an hour, no lounge waiting for us so were not too bothered. After a sit down lunch and some duty free shopping our flight was called – it had been delayed by half an hour, which I had expected after seeing the stats here. I was anxious going to the plane knowing we had a chance of being stuck with NOVA as the IFE and we were the plane was Hot Lips. However I knew we had the 2 seats at the back and the plane was pretty quiet so wouldn’t be all bad.
We boarded about an hour late in the end, but were told we would make it up on the way so no real harm done here. It was only when we got on that we realised how empty the flight was going to be 150 free seats we were told. People scrambled to get as many seats as they could we were quite comfy so stayed put. However after 20 minutes the IFE stopped working and my husband had to move, luckily there were 2 seats next to me so it wasn’t a major hardship, however if the flight had been full it would have been really annoying 8 hours with no entertainment not good. Unlike people on previous tripreports we did get a pre-dinner drink, I went for a bloody Mary, surprisingly they had no Tabasco. After that we got our meal with accompanying wine, I had a chicken which was in comparison to my UC meal very good. It doesn’t look very pretty but actually was tasty. The gu pot especially good. The UC offering was not much of an improvement, well not for the cost. Again unlike other reports I have seen the CC were really helpful, the guy in front asked for a number of extra drinks and they were delivered promptly and with a smile, however this could all be a result of the fact of the light flight load.
I watched 2 films on the loop system and with managed to get some sleep helped by the extra seat. We made up the time in the air and after what felt like a relatively short time we were there. On departing I saw the premium economy which looked really old and tattered would have been annoyed if we had upgraded with the extra seats we definitely had better time in Y.
Immigration took a bit of time, but that was nothing compared to the bags. One of our bags came off with the crews, I know others will dispute this but I had left my upper class tag on and it was definitely first off. Our other bag we waited over an hour for which after flying for 8 hours was not much fun.
All in all good flight, especially as it was free.
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