This is a Trip Report from the Economy cabin
Ground Staff
Food & Drink
Entertainment
Seat
Cabin Crew
ok so here we go it's now 6am and Im up dressed and off to Gatwick for what will hopefully be a fab trip. Got to crew check in, tagged my bag and even managed to get into the terminal for a coffee. Check in look extremely busy, think this is because there are about 4 virgin flights all leaving around the same time. Well with my coffee I made it back to our crew room which was equally busy with all the crew, waiting for briefings. I managed to meet a few of my crew, also already had flown with 2 of them and there was one who I flew with at my last airline. So as we went in for briefing I knew we were going to have fun today!
In the briefing we met the FSM lovely bloke! And our 2 CSS's who were also really nice the briefing was done, we were due to be full everywhere and had 2 companions who may end up on the jump seats at the top of the stairs. We made our way through security to the bus. Bag dropped of we went up the stairs to the plane which was G-VROM English Rose. She was all ready for us so we got straight on with all the usual checks, found the crew cart, had my traditional sandwich time now is about 8am. I was at the very back of the plane sat at the 5 doors on the left, so had to man my door while the passengers boarded. As I was also near the toilets got the usual 'can I use the toilets' and also had a gentleman come up to me to explain he had been separated from his wife, so I told him that once we had boarded everyone I would see what I could do but couldn't promise anything as we were expecting to be full. Then I had a lady come up to me who told me she was a nervous flyer and needed reassurance if we had any turbulence. She went on to tell me that she was on one of the trains in the 7/7 London bombings! WOW! Big respect to her! Once we had finished boarding I got a crew member to cover my door and went to look for some empty seats and I found 2 together so moved the couple straight away so they could be together they thanked me then told me they were on their honeymoon, great made a mental note to spoil them later with some bubbly and chocs from upper. After that found the Y CSS and informed her of my nervous flyer and also told every other Y crew member just in case I was else where on the flight and we hit turbulence. Doors armed I took my seat for takeoff then once released we all went into our routine of headsets, amenity kits and landing cards for everyone. Drinks went pretty uneventful, got my honeymooners their drinks, but it did become apparent that we were having trouble with our headsets. This has been going on for a while and we are slowly getting rid of the broken ones but there are still a lot left in the system. Luckily we had extra to cope.
The meal service was great didn't run out of anything until the last 2 rows in the middle then we got the extra premium meals and that was fine, passengers are always happy when you tell them they are having their meal upgraded! After the meal service the FSM asked me to do a retail therapy PA, we dont normally do these but we can if the FSM wants, so I did my best retail PA (EasyJet would be proud of me lol) I will also point out that we now have loads of new products some are really cool like limited edition Jack Daniels and the new Diesel perfume not even out in the shops lol this flight is always busy on duty free so now I had geared all the passengers up for buying I offered to go out on a duty free bar. We were out in the aisles for 3 hours think we must have broke a record there, the CSS even brought us some drinks half way down. After that I was determined to eat something, so I had a really nice chicken stew from the crew food. Oh and a GU love em! that done ice cream service began with a juice and water straight afterward (the other crew had done a juice and water while we were doing duty free) then finally a little break 45 mins I didn't take mine instead I stayed in the galley and served a slowly building up queue for drinks, most alcoholic lol not seen a flight this busy since my last Vegas. After a while we were getting a bit low on drinks especially wine so we had to close the bars so the returning crew had enough for their flight.
soon it was time for the second service afternoon tea, we handed these out pretty quickly and did our tea/coffee rounds and then cleared in while I was clearing in the captain did his PA to tell the passengers where we were and that we would be getting the seatbelt signs on in 10 mins. 10 mins!?!? God Id better get a move on and get everyone cleared in! Just as we did the last few rows the seatbelt signs went on, and we had to get straight on with securing the cabin, this took a while but we did mange to get the cabin looking pretty good for landing.
Once we landed we were parked up pretty quickly and connected to the airbridge at the 1 door, bit unusual as we normally use the 2 doors. As everyone got off they commented on a great flight which is always good, and then we did our checks got our bags and made our way into the terminal. Immigration was not too bad but still slow as they are very strict here. Once through our bags were waiting for us all lined up and I made my way out to the bus or where it should be! No bus ah! We all waited for about 20 mins before the driver turned up and told us he was parked over the road behind a load of bushes and had been watching us! He could have come and got us sooner oh well! In the hotel I got a much needed shower and went to the bar for a few drinks with my crew. All in all a very good flight but extremely busy!
Hope this one is ok, not as detailed as the first but then I dont suppose you need the general stuff really as you now know what we get up to. Thanks for reading
john
