This is a Trip Report from the Premium Economy cabin
Ground Staff
Food & Drink
Entertainment
Seat
Cabin Crew
I am writing this report as when I was researching booking my flights last year, there was not much information available on the PE cabin on the new A330 2 cabin, economy + PE, we flew PE each way. We flew to ST Lucia on a Virgin 747 about 9 years ago PE, so in the upper deck which we enjoyed, I had concerns about space etc having read some comments on the forum.
Returning to Manchester we had a few problems.
I had already reserved our seats in the PE cabin as soon as they were available to reserve online, about 10 weeks before we flew, we booked 22 DFG (the middle section as the cabin is 2 + 3 + 2). On checkin at Orlando airport we had a small queue for PE checkin, there was a large queue of people at the economy desk. When we tried to checkin, we had a problem with our luggage being overweight, as we had been in Florida 3 weeks, we had 3 full size cases, in Manchester we just checked in no problem, we had not bought much extra in Florida so we did not expect any problems, but in Orlando the checkin desk said 2 of our cases were over the 23KG allowed at 27.5KG and 25.5KG, the other case was 21KG and ok. At that point I was give the option to pay $50 per case ($100 total) then they would accept the cases, I pointed out that as PE PAX we were entitled 2 cases each at 46KG total and I had already paid a £600 surchage per PAX to upgrade to PE, so surely there was some flexibility as we only had 1 case each, using half our allowance in effect, the checkin staff were adamant we either pay the surcharge or re-pack. At this point we decided to repack and balance the cases better, this meant sitting on the floor at Orlando airport next to the checkin desk/queue, open our 3 large cases and move the contents around, while entertaining a tired/bored 6 year old, while being watched by all the queuing passengers, luckily there was a free scale next to the queue where you could weigh cases, there was a queue for this, so it was not just ourselves with this problem, there were quite a few disgruntled PAX doing the same. We considered buying an extra case at the airport, as if we moved moved the extra 7KG to this case, we could check it in, but the cases at the airport were expensive and I was quite annoyed with how we were treated, so I did not want to waste money/pay more to Virgin, so we moved aload of clothes to our carry on case, which reduced the cases to 23KG each, but when they weighed our carry on case it was now overweight at 13KG, so we had to check this in. We did not have a lock on this bag so it, was a concern, it also had all our inflight requirements, paperwork, passports, valuables you don't want to put in a case, my childs pack of colouring books/games/toys/snacks and a change of clothes, so we had to take what we could out of this and put it in plastic bags to carry on the aircraft.
This all took around 1 hour to do and then re-queue/checkin, we then had go go through US Homeland Security, as we were now later than planned, the queue was much larger. As we were delayed, we got to the gate after the call was made for PE PAX to board first, so we had to join the back of the economy queue, as there was no queue for PE only boarding now.
My Wife is a nervous flyer, so having all this hastle really was a bad start to the flight and a bad ending to a really nice holiday.
The cabin looked nice and plush with leather seats everywhere, nice lighting, the centre of the cabin where we sat felt very spacious as the ceiling is much higher than the 2 seats on either side as there are no overhead lockers for the central rows that you have on the Window seats, so the effect feels very roomy, but you do lose the air vents that you normally have for your seat to control airflow. I can imagine if there were lots of Passengers with carry on luggage, there could be abit of a free for all for the available overhead storge space, so early boarding is recommended, though we had no problems. There is limited space under the seats, for small bags, having a young child we took on some colouring books/games/toys/snacks and a change of clothes in case of accidents which fit in a bag under the seat.
On sitting down the cabin crew started to circulate offerring a welcome drink of champagne and soft drinks for kids.
We left the gate on time and were up in there the air quickly.
The IFE is excellent, largest seatback screen I have seen on an aircraft, lots of movies, TV & Music choice, the games are basic but good, in PE we got complimentary headphones, not sure if that's the case for economy. The IFE kept my 6 year old tech advanced child happy for the flight, so that's quite an achievemnt, I watched 4 fairly recent movies, which had been on the cinemas in the last few months but were not yet available on DVD in the UK, so a 10/10 for IFE. My son was particularly fascinated following the maps and aircraft progress on the flight status, saved him asking me when we would be there continuously !!!
Dinner was served late evening, a nice choice, I think it was chicken, beef or Raviolli, I had beef which was good. One odd thing was that the starter was Prawn salad, we're not a fan of prawns so did not touch it, fish starters are abit love em or hate em, so was a surprise as a starter with no choice, I would have expected a more bland starter that everyone would be ok with. I booked a childs meal for each way when I reserved the seats, when we left Manchester they brought the child meal first before the main trolley distribution, so I asked for the childs meal when I saw they started the main meal distribution, I was told that they had no childmeals left, as quite a few PAX had upgraded to PE at checkin, so the meals allocated to PE were given to them as we checked in late, as you can imagine this was not well received and I pointed out I reserved this meal nearly 10 weeks ago and I purchased PE nearly 12 months ago, so we should have had the childs meal as requested. The crew said they could do nothing, so my 6 year only had to have an adults meal, there was only chicken left, which he did not like so ended up eating nothing as he does not like beef and there was no raviolli left at that stage, so we were very annoyed at this.
We used the 2 bathrooms at the front of the cabin, I mention this as I read that people were reporting 1 of the bathrooms at the front of PE was not available regularly, so this was not the case on our flight. The location is abit odd, as you walk past the front rown, behind the cabin wall, where the cabin crew are sat/stood, so if waiting for the bathroom, you are mingling with the crew while they work/chat, which was different than on aircraft I have flown before, but this is better for the front row of the cabin, as they do not get the PAX waiting for the bathroom stood in there space waiting in the front of the cabin.
The seats were comfortable for the flight to Orlando, but on this return flight most people reclined the seats, this really reduces the space you have, you then have to recline your own seat, but never really feel you have the same space as when the seats are upright, this is particular noticable for the legroom, so we were not as comfortable on this return flight. The seat table is on the left armrest, I'm guessing with the size of the IFE screen they could not do a dropdown table from the seat infront, one problem with this is the armrest can be opened affecting the PAX next to you, my son wanted it out constantly so he could draw and play with his toys on the table. The other problem with this is that the armrests are solid and fixed between the seats, on flights in the past when alone we have lifted the armrest between the seats when we have flown as 2 adults, as this gives lots more space, it seemed a shame we had an isolated row of 3 seats and you could not lift the armrests to use all the available space, not a major problem outgoing, but when returning on a night flight, its a pain when you have an uncomfortable child who would prefer to lean against you or you could stretch out over the adults and all get more comfortable.
On this return flight the cabin felt much warmer, uncomfortably so at times, I'm not sure if they raise the temperature for night flights, but in the middle section you do not have the overhead air coolers/fans, so you cannot control the temperature yourself, which is not good.
We were given breakfast about 2 hours before landing, all day breakfast (scrambled egg/bacon/sausage) which was ok, but did not have much taste, there was a vegetarian option we did not try, there was no childs breakfast available for my son as they had been given out, so he had to have the adults breakfast, which he did not like, so did not eat much from it.
We landed early as the flight took about 7.5 hours, PE PAX were first off the plane, we were happy to get off the plane due to the problems we had had with flight.
I intend to complain to Virgin Atlantic about the problems above, it was particularly annoying that the overweight baggage problem could be solved by paying a $100 excess, so this does not strike me as a problem where they say they cannot handle the bag, its something they can generate money by. Missing out on the child meal due to PAX upgrading at checkin should not happen when you reserve your seat/meal 10 weeks in advance on a flight you booked nearly a year in advance. I have flown Virgin about 10 times over the years and we used to be 'Frequent Virgins', we have not flown long haul since we had our son, so our last Virgin flight was about 9 years ago to St Lucia on PE, in my opinion the quality and service has dropped and I would consider careful carefully and look at other options before booking with Virgin again, when before this flight they were the preferred 'default' carrier for us. I did not see much of the economy cabin, so its hard to say whether upgrading to PE is worth the significant extra cost for a family, but I would say on this return flight, with the meal and reclining seat problems we experienced, I would think carefully before flying PE with Virgin again.
If flying PE, I would recommend considering taking an empty case/holdall to Orlando to avoid problems/charges with Orlando checkin if you have not used your allowance of 2*23KG per PAX.
