This is a Trip Report from the Upper Class cabin
Ground Staff
Food & Drink
Entertainment
Seat
Cabin Crew
Once we pushed back i plugged into the IFE to find there was no audio & a second headset confirmed a seat problem which turned out to be shared to rows 8 and 9 - 4 seats in total as there are no middle seats in these rows. Once the seatbelt signs were off the FSM tried a couple of seat reboots to no avail & then came back to offer me 8000 miles as there were no empty seats & the pax across the aisle in K had bagged the 2 portable DVD players. Then she noticed from the manifest that i was a FC Au member & offered up a seat swap with a VS employee who wasn't using her IFE. The guy behind me who wasn't a FC member got offered the 8000 miles only so its good to see the status actually counting for something for once.
Once i was re-seated the rest of the journey was trouble free, the food was excellent; ham hock, chicken caeser & strawberry custard tart, & the crew were great. A long flight (over 8 hours) saw them bringing around the afternoon tea an hour early but i for one wasn't complaining.
Once into O'Hare i discovered something new (to me at least); there is now, prior to the main immigration hall, a 'one stop' immigration area for pax carrying hand luggage only consisting of 2 desks who carry out both immigration & customs checks at the same time, then you exit down a separate corridor into the arrivals area without going through the main hall, baggage reclaim or customs. This was a really well thought out idea that had me on the avis bus within 10 minutes of de-planing & its the first time i've seen any innovation on the US immigration side to benefit the pax and I really hope it get rolled out to other airports.
