This is a Trip Report from the Economy cabin
Ground Staff
Food & Drink
Entertainment
Seat
Cabin Crew
Checked in online but still needed a boarding pass, the self serve machines seemed very slow compared to BA and a bit cumbersome. Check in staff at bag drop were very poor, 2 of them talking to each other for 5 minutes before finally calling us over – greeted like we had turned up on Xmas day and nicked all their presents not a great first interaction.
Off to the number 1 lounge utilising the Virgin Flying Club offer (£17.50 instead of £30 and 500 miles) for a bit of relaxation (and maybe a couple of drinks !) very good value and nice place to wait a couple of hours. Boarded pretty much on time, nice greeting from the FC and headed off to 61H&K.
Flight was very empty and crew announced to economy they were free to move seats when established in the cruise, but can’t sit in the purple seats as they are £40 extra ! (poor marketing there VS, let people experience them and they might be tempted to pay next time !) as you can imagine, there was “that” family that didn’t want to wait until we were in the cruise and promptly started trying out several seats to see which they liked best as we are taxing to the runway –if only people could follow instructions FC announced that take off would be extra noisy as the captain had informed her he had to do a full power take off ? didn’t notice much difference to be honest.
Smooth climb out of a wet and dreary LHR with a flight time of 7 hours , so nice and quick. When established in the cruise, went for a nose to see if any good seats available, thankfully the Idiot clan has left the very first row of EC free as “they aint no tele’s in that row!” – i.e, they were stowed for take off ! so we availed ourselves to the front middle 4 seats in EC meaning I could have the map on and still watch a movie with 2 non “tele’s”
Drinks served with good interaction with the crew, who seemed cheerful and happy to chat. Settled to the first movie when food came around, I had Mushroom pasta which was ok, Gu pudding was great. Ice creams served later in the flight followed by the usual sandwich box. No issues with getting a drink, crew seemed happy to help – think they were glad to be doing something.
Held for a few minutes approaching JFK so we did a couple of loops to allow us some sightseeing at night exited the a/c pretty quickly, and seemed like PE had also been empty as lots of unused goody bags and blankets on seats. Customs were pretty quick (For US standards) and our bags arrived with us – all in all, pretty drama free.
Overall impressions, the A/C at LHR are not as nice as the refurbished A/C from LGW. I’ve had 6 flights out of LGW with VS and all but 1 on a refurb. The LGW planes are a lot nicer and feel more modern, the IFE is a lot better as well. The LHR fleet feels quite dated compared to this. Ground crew need some lessons, flight crew were good and we arrived on time with luggage. We used a reward combi fare so for the money we paid, it was pretty good. Is there a reason to choose VS over BA ? for me, there is little or no difference so it will still come down to price !
FC
The complaints about the LGW fleet being an inferior product were legion!
glad you had a pleasant flight!
I agree with your frustration regarding pax not following instructions....drives me nuts, I mean it is not difficult is it? Shame about the ground crew but I'm sure a couple of drinkies in the rather pleasant No1 lounge helped the trip move on 
