This is a Trip Report from the Economy cabin
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Edinburgh and Aberdeen will follow in the coming weeks but here's my trip report, based on the flight only.
Having bagged sequence one
by getting up stupidly early, I had travelled up to Manchester the day before and stayed at the Hilton Manchester Airport, which is walking distance to the terminals. I have previously been disappointed by Hilton but this one was good enough.
So, after a stupidly late night, I was up stupidly early to be part of the inaugural Heathrow flight. It was dark outside! Having used Passbook on my iPhone for the first time I didn't have to go to check-in, (while not open it was bedecked with oddly phallic balloons while chocolates were ready to be handed out. to passengers. )
So, straight to the seventh ring of Hell. I mean Manchester Airport Terminal 3 Security.
An absolute disgrace. Lots of flights, lots of passengers and not enough staff. Various announcements were made asking people to identify themselves if they were on a specific flight and they were pulled out of the queue and prioritised. That involved pulling back the retractable ribbbon barriers, and asking people to stand to one side as the worried passengers were called forward, all to get to their flight in time. Other passengers then ducked under the ribbon barrier and little sub-queues formed. Not at all conducive to a good morning. This queue-jumping then irritated the security staff and other passengers. All in all I waited about 35 minutes in a queue and then had to remove my trainers for X-Ray. Actually in all my years of travelling I have never witnessed such a badly organised security system.
I finally got through, and headed for the Escape lounge. This took a bit longer than I expected as the signage wasn't great and I walked straight past! The Priority Pass app kept me right though.
The Escape Lounge at T3 is a former bmi lounge and uses the same furniture. It's also the lounge that Virgin use for the UC and Au members. I used my Priority Pass.
A nice range of drinks and surprisingly drinkable coffee (from a machine) were offered, as well as a bacon or a sausage sarnie.
The plane was at Gate 19, and Virgin had two staff walking around offering croissants, pastries, mini chocolates, teas, coffees and some 'fizz'. Of course I sampled the lot.
One of the Virgin staff here stood out and amazingly witty and engaging. She has worked for VS for 7 years and was clearly proud of working with them.
My carriage awaits "Queen of the Cobbles", proudly in Virgin Atlantic livery. Sadly you can't really see the lovely purple glow from the lighting onboard.
I stayed in the lounge as I was told that I would be called when the flight was ready. Little Gu eggs were given to boarding passengers. As usual, despite waiting to go through security to what I thought was the last, there was a queue on the airbridge. C'est La Vie.
But enough of that! Time to board, and fight the comfy seat 4A. It has a window and legroom was not a problem. The steward did ask if I wanted an extending seatbelt, which confirms that I will be starting a diet tomorrow.
There were a few announcements about this being the first ever Virgin Atlantic Little Red flight (which got a cheer), an official photographer wanted a pic of the passengers waving, the Captain welcomed us on board too and during the flight. Take off was, I think bang on time.
The ascent was steeper than I recall than on previous flights.
Service started a little later than would prove practical, I enjoyed my big bacon ciabatta with brown sauce (I won't post a pic. There's no way of making a bacon sarnie drenched in brown sauce look appetising!) served along with a coffee, although some other passengers opted for alcohol.
In fact, the service was not able to be completed before descent started to Heathrow, for which the stewardess twice apologised. This will surely be tweaked, today's flight time was 35 minutes.
Time to sit back and enjoy the scenery.
We arrived at Heathrow to light applause from some of the other passengers; where the Terminal 3 buses were waiting. Passengers going on to other Virgin flights leave the plane but staff waited at the top of the airbridge to direct them, thus avoiding Flight Connections route.
It certainly felt like I was flying Virgin, with Aer Lingus references kept to a minimum. (A sticker by the side of the aircraft door indicated that this was an Aer Lingus aircraft.)
Heathrow Terminal 1 was similarly bedecked.
A nice touch from Wetherspoons.
