V-Flyer

Silver Lady

I left home at 7:45pm to catch my 10:35am flight. The check-in at Lagos Airport was untidy as opposed to chaotic. It is not as bad as some people might imply but it is also not as ordered as one would like. Once I had checked in I had to then take my case over to a table where 2 customs officers proceeded to open my case and ask me all sorts of intriguing questions.

Before being allowed to go through the departure gate I had to fill out 2 forms. On the first form you have to state what you are going abroad for and where you will be staying abroad (even if you are a foreign citizen)..like that is anyones business. The second form asks you to state how much foreign currency you will be carrying out of Nigeria. The limit is $5000. The interesting thing is that you dont actually hand this form in until you have gone through Passport Control when it is too late to turn back. Therefore if you do have more than $5000 you have no choice but to leave the excess in the possession of the officials. For some reason I wasnt searched for any foreign currency; perhaps most passengers have become wise to it and officials now regard searching as a waste of time.

Once I stepped through into the departure area there were a couple of duty free stores which seemed to be half open or half closed depending upon how you look at it. However, it was 8:30am in the morning so no excuse for that. I then proceeded to the boarding gate where I spent another 45 minutes reading.

I was looking forward to this flight mainly because my inbound leg was a bit of a disaster with regards to the entertainment and meals and I was hoping to see an improvement. To be fair I did see an improvement in both but there were still a couple of hiccups. With about 1.5 hours left of the flight my IFE started to play up and I asked the hostess if it could be reset to which she replied Well be switching it off in 30 minutes anyway. Er..so does that mean I cant spend 30 mins perhaps watching Only Fools and Horses. Hmmmmmmm. The food was much better but again the portion sizes were very scant. I mean I finished the desert in 3 (small) spoons. BA in my view definitely has bigger portions, even in Economy.

This is probably the last time I will fly Premium Economy as I will go Upper Class in future. I have gone Upper Class before and was impressed but I just hope standards have not slipped there, otherwise I may have to switch to BA Club World. The good thing is on my next flight I will use up my airmiles on a reward ticket, therefore I wont have any reason to stay with VA if it is a disaster.

On arrival at Heathrow I spent nearly 2 hours waiting for my luggage and cursed VA most of that time. As it turned out it was not VAs fault at all. Some bright spark had mistaken my case for his/her own, taken it off the conveyor belt and then not put it back on after realising their mistake. Therefore my case was lying on the ground out of sight whilst I stood waiting for it to appear. I was not a happy bunny.

All in all I have to say that VAs standards have dropped over the past couple of years. The main reason why I started flying VA in the first place was because they arrive in Lagos in the morning and it is safer to leave the airport at that time of the day whereas BA arrives in the evening. However, that advantage is gradually wearing thin. I think VA needs to forget about the seat improvements for a while and concentrate on service and staff improvements.