VS243 RUH-LHR 26 MAY 25 (Upper Class)

So after two solid days in Riyadh, I decided that I wouldnt be in a hurry to go back, but did have a really nice time there, it was definitely more Westernised than it used to be, but the 45 degree heat was a little too much. Very deserted places around the city, felt like a little bit of a ghost town, but the lack of alcohol didn't bother me at all.

Back to RUH terminal 1 for the return VS243 back to London Heathrow. Very speedy check in at the Upper Class desks with Swissport handling the erm...handling, but interestingly whilst male colleagues wore the VS uniform, the female colleagues wore the Swissport one but with VS name badges. Looked a bit confused.

The Plaza Premium lounge was quite frankly rubbish, was about 1/4 full, but nothing seemed to be cleared, and there was a pretty limited selection. Thankfully it was just steps away from Gate 107 where once again G-VJAZ was waiting to take me back to London. Interestingly, G-VJAZ has seems to be the mainstay of the RUH route, and just for the most part seems to shuttle back and forwards. I am not sure if thats because the flight times make it a captive slot for the same aircraft or if there's a reason for it? As there are Arabic specific announcements, I did wonder if maybe only one or two aircraft have them uploaded to their firmware or something?

Boarding is via the L1 and L2 doors, so you get to board Upper down a private jet bridge, which I always like, it just feels a little special!

Predeparture drinks of Arabic coffee and juice and water. Lots of familiar faces on the flight - quite a few people had had the same idea as me to spend the bank holiday weekend on this route!

Food was a Lamb dish, prawns or Polenta with veg. I always moan that Virgin Voyages veggie options always seem to be blooming Polenta, so to see VS taking a leaf out of their book was amusing. The dish itself looked awful, not because of the crew but just the way it actually looked, but it tasted much nicer. I had a cheese plate for dessert.

Alcohol was allowed to be served from pretty much as they were brining main courses out as we crossed out of Saudi airspace.

I sat in the loft with a handful of other travellers who had been like me over for the bank holiday! Had a really good laugh with them talking all things miles and points. Two of them had never flown VS before, but were clearly enjoying their first time with this trip and one was a bonafide avgeek so we had a great time.

Crew were very engaging and kept drinks topped up constantly! Overall great flight and landed 15 mins early into a moderately busy T3, but managed to make it into a taxi within 11 minutes of the aircraft door opening!

My next trip is to Corfu and then straight to Vegas in a few weeks, and I will be flying BA Club out of Heathrow to LAS, my first transatlantic NOT on VS!

Thanks for the two TRs. With the route, I can see that VS have a partnership with the soon-to-be-launched Riyadh Air and I think there's some sort of partnership for Saudi Arabia's Vision 2023 initiative, so I suspect that route will be around for a while to come.