VS006 MIA-LHR 15 Nov 06 (PE)

This is a Trip Report from the Premium Economy cabin

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Arrived at MIA at about 15:10, went to the PE check in where there was 1 person in front of us. After about 5 minutes, we were called to the Upper class check in as there was no queue there. Checked in fairly quickly. Luckily i noticed that the check in agent had forgotten to take my green visa waiver form out, so i handed it to her. Went for a look round the shops in concourse E and F before going through security. The whole process took about 5-10 minutes, which i was suprised at. Walked down to gate E8 and noticed that the plane was on stand already. Sort of happy to see it wasn't Lady Penelope again as i have been on her about 8 times now (and she had taken us to MIA 1 week earlier). As we got to the gate i couldn't see the name of the plane, so i looked on the nose wheel door to see the reg. I could see 'OW' written on it, so that meant we would be going on Cosmic Girl, which i hadn't been on before. After a very long wait boarding started at about 18:30, and we were the first on so i decided to get the camera out and take a pic of our seats:

[img]http://filexoom.com/files/15931/PE%20seats.jpg[/img]

After we boarded the captain came on the PA and said that the flight would be a very quick 7h55 and that he wasn't expecting any problems enroute until we got to LHR where there was currently a storm! Then one of the cabin crew made the announcement in what sounded like Spanish - first time i had that on a VS plane! At about 19:30 we pushed back and taxied out to runway 9R. There wasn't a queue infront of us, so we taxied onto the runway and had a rolling start. It was at this point i felt my seat reclining without even touching anything! The lady behind made a comment but i explained that it wasn't my fault and she seemed ok with it. About 30-45 mins later the IFE was started and i watched my super ex girlfriend. Then dinner came round and i had the chicken with pasta, which was quite nice, along with the cheesecake. I must admit though, i preffered the meal i had on the outbound flight. Then i got some sleep, and before i knew it breakfast was being served. Initially i didnt really feel like any as the bacon roll id had on previous flights didnt appeal to me. But as soon as i found out it was fruit and a muffin i took it. The muffin was very tasty and moist, but the fruit wasn't that great. Then i realised that i hadn't got the duty free i had pre ordered, even though i had given the order number in when the pre flight drinks were being given out. I went to the back of the upper deck and mentioned it to somebody and about 20 mins later i recieved it. Shortly afterwards the captain came over the PA again to announce we had started our descent. He was expecting it to be quite rough as it was still raining, although he wasn't expecting any delays. Our descent took us over Cardiff and down the M4 to Heathrow. We came out of the some very turbulent clouds just above Twickenham stadium, and the engines sounded like they were struggling to keep us at speed, but a few moments later we were on runway 27R at Heathrow at approx 08:40, 10 minutes ahead of schedule. We exited the runway to the left and taxied to gate 1. Once the seatbelt sign had gone off, we made our way down the stairs and had to wait a few minutes for the door to be opened. Once we got off, we went on what seemed like a 12 mile hike to immigration. There was no queue there and we went straight through to baggage claim, where we only waited about 5/10 minutes for out bags. From the time we landed to getting out of customs it took us about 30 minutes. Pretty impressive for peak time!

Anyways thats my first trip report done - hope i didn't go on too much!

Originally posted by hairy114
About 30-45 mins later the IFE was started and i watched my super ex girlfriend.

Is that a film or is she a film star ?[;)]

Originally posted by hairy114

Anyways thats my first trip report done

And thank you

Originally posted by hairy114

hope i didn't go on too much!

Not at all...

Paul

[honey lamb]

Then one of the cabin crew made the announcement in what sounded like Spanish - first time i had that on a VS plane!

We too had it on our flight from JFK at the beginning of November and like you, I had never heard it before

Good TR Hairy, thank you. [y]

Originally posted by honey lamb

Then one of the cabin crew made the announcement in what sounded like Spanish - first time i had that on a VS plane!

We too had it on our flight from JFK at the beginning of November and like you, I had never heard it before

Nice to see that VS are doing this, I have seen it on all american airlines across the pond and internally but never on VS. Surprised it was done from JFK- MIA makes sense with its closeness to south america and its hub status for that region. Maybe this is new VS policy due to the increasing numbers of spanish only speaking americans (Walmart is now all in Spanish also). I guess though it can only be done if a Spanish speaking staffer is on board.

Thanx for the TR! [y]

Glad you had a good flight and that you were through in 30mins! AMAZING!

Dominic

[buns]

Hairy114

Thank you for the TR[y][y]

It was at this point i felt my seat reclining without even touching anything!

roll on the new PE seat then[;)]

Thanks once again

buns

[Neil]

Super first TR, thanks[y]. Bit confused by the Spanish announcement, why Spanish and not say French or some other language.[:?]

Neil[:)]

On routes where we don't carry national based crew (all routes excluding Lagos, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tokyo, Delhi, Dubai, Mumbai, and Sydney), there is no policy regarding language speakers making PAs.

There aren't many crew working for us who can speak another language with enough fluency to make a decent PA - however, on the rare occasion that there is someone who can, it is 100% at their discretion if they decide to do so.

I would estimate that we have language speakers on around 20% of our flights Ð and then around half of them will bother to make a PA.

I recently flew with one lovely Italian junior who on our Los Angeles trip kindly decided he would make PAs in both Italian and a particular dialect of Chinese which he was also fluent in!

[mcmbenjamin]

Originally posted by Attitude23
Super first TR, thanks[y]. Bit confused by the Spanish announcement, why Spanish and not say French or some other language.[:?]

Neil[:)]

Well there are a lot of Spanish speakers in Miami. Lots of ex-Cubans and various other people. Nice to do I guess but frankly I want a PA free flight. I like the seat back text messages. They are helpful without the bother. [:D]

There comes a point I think where it just gets annoying to do announcements in too many languages. I would go with the rule of the vernacular of the origin an destination.