V-Flyer

Cosmic Girl
Seat 28C
Gate 23

The flight was scheduled for a 9.30am departure from LHR, so I had a taxi booked for 5.15am. I was at the theatre with my sons and during the intermission, I got an email from Virgin to say the flight had been delayed until 1pm. There was also a voicemail message on the home phone.

I managed to call my taxi company and rebook my driver.

I got to T3 at around 7.45am, which was the original time of by massage, and headed to UC checkin.

There was a bit of a heated argument going on, well heated from one side. A passenger was upset that the seats he had selected through his travel agent were no longer available to him. He was shouting about how much he had paid for 4 UC tickets and that Virgin did n't honour his booking.

He appeared to be traveling with another man and two women. The guy's looked like a couple of bodybuilders and the man's vocal reaction caused the Police to come over and check with the UC manager dealing with the issue. There were some more Police watching from afar.

During this I checked in, and was given 28C had both my carry on items tagged. I am in Las Vegas for SEMA and my companies conference, so have a laptop and some camera gear. Unfortunately I forgot I had brought a Poster Tube, more of that later.

Headed quickly through Security, again 6 people working / having a chat and only me through it. I got to the Lounge to find there was a message for me to speak to the concierge.

I could n't think what this was about, perhaps they had read the TR to IAD and wanted to apologise....

Nope, I was a muppet and had left my poster tube down at Checkin.
As I had re-booked my massage for 9am, I thought I'd leave it until later, as I had plenty of time with a 3.5 hour delay.

I ordered the Full English, and had a good massage. And then went back to the concierge to find out how to get my Tube back.

To my surprise, I had to exit the airport, via IRIS. Left hand one not working again, through baggage, customs, outside, back to UC checkin, up to Gold Security and back into the lounge. It only took 15 minutes, but I thought all I would have to do would be to go back to the Xray machines.

There was no gate assigned with less than an hour to go, so I checked with the concierge if there were any further delays. She found out it was at Gate 23, which is right outside the Clubhouse.

The flight was called at 12:40 and I got to the gate just at the end of the priority boarding, so I packed my bags in the overhead bins and sat down at the bar. I did overhear that a BA Gold member was on board and was trying the Virgin UC service for the first time. A few crew members were told to ensure an excellent service I presume.

This is when I heard that some of the crew knew as early as mid afternoon Monday that the VS19 would be delayed. I also had heard in the clubhouse that some people were not aware of the delay.

The doors were closed at 13:15, and we pushed back at 13:30. With a flight time of 10 hours and 8 minutes, it was going to be midnight, UK time by the time we would land.

The drinks service came quickly, followed by dinnerm which I selected Sausage and Mash, which was average.

I decided to sleep as I had to drive to Fremont and Santa Cruz upon landing.

I must have slept through the Ice Cream service, as when I asked later, I was given one, but it was liquid.

During the flight, we were served a Wrap and a Bagel about 15 minutes apart, and the fruit basket came out.
Through the curtains I saw the FSM be very active in the UC cabin. I did not see him in PE or Economy. His annoucements were all very professional and done without reading any sort of script.

We landed around 3.45pm, and as we were taxiing I saw an Air France plane come in. So I knew I'd have to hot foot it to get to Immigration before another plane load.

The immigration hall at 4pm was clear, so I exited within 5 minutes, and found that my bag was already on the carousel. This was much faster than I had ever experience. From landing to being landside, was 20 minutes.

I drove to Santa Cruz, via Fremont, and spent the evening in a Pizza restaurant with my friend which was packed, as everyone was watching the Election coverage, at 8.30pm the result was declared and everyone went nuts. It was a very interesting thing to observe, although I really am not sure how they can count votes that quickly and delare results so sonn after the polls close.

Summary

A consistent, good flight with good service, despite the delay.
No FSM / or Gold Acknowledgement, 41 flights and counting.

Thanks for the TR, shame about the delay, but good to hear you were out within 20mins!

Dominic

Thanks for the great TR![y]

Couldn't believe the roundabout way to get your poster tube back.

As for the seat requests, maybe VS need to make this clearer and also tell travel agents.

Thanks for the TR.

It's the one and only way to get back landside once you have passed though security. I think it's down to UK immigration rules.

Like you say though, with IRIS and Upper Class Wing access, it's pretty quick.

Regards

How did you swing being able to sit at the bar when travelling PE [:0]???

'...The flight was called at 12:40 and I got to the gate just at the end of the priority boarding, so I packed my bags in the overhead bins and sat down at the bar...'

Originally posted by vizbiz

How did you swing being able to sit at the bar when travelling PE [:0]???

'...The flight was called at 12:40 and I got to the gate just at the end of the priority boarding, so I packed my bags in the overhead bins and sat down at the bar...'

I'm going to guess that it was because the OP was sitting in 28C (exit row) and the crew generally offer 28AC to have their boarding drinks at the bar due to all the goings-on at the boarding door.

Originally posted by ukcobra


No FSM / or Gold Acknowledgement, 41 flights and counting.

FYI, I have spoken to the crew about this, it seems by random chance your name was drawn, the crew then sold numbers from 50 - 100, so odd's are you will greeted by an FSM that has been bribed [:D]

Oh and thanks for the TR [y]

Originally posted by Tinkerbelle

Originally posted by vizbiz

How did you swing being able to sit at the bar when travelling PE [:0]???

'...The flight was called at 12:40 and I got to the gate just at the end of the priority boarding, so I packed my bags in the overhead bins and sat down at the bar...'

I'm going to guess that it was because the OP was sitting in 28C (exit row) and the crew generally offer 28AC to have their boarding drinks at the bar due to all the goings-on at the boarding door.

Thats it, saves me tripping up 200 people when they come on board.

Mark

Originally posted by ukcobra

Originally posted by Tinkerbelle

Originally posted by vizbiz

How did you swing being able to sit at the bar when travelling PE [:0]???

'...The flight was called at 12:40 and I got to the gate just at the end of the priority boarding, so I packed my bags in the overhead bins and sat down at the bar...'

I'm going to guess that it was because the OP was sitting in 28C (exit row) and the crew generally offer 28AC to have their boarding drinks at the bar due to all the goings-on at the boarding door.

Thats it, saves me tripping up 200 people when they come on board.

Mark

Now that's worth knowing - when I've had 28A or 28C in the past I've not bothered to be first on for exactly the reason of being trodden on; nice piece of lateral thinking...[y]

I always wait until I hear that the last passenger is on board, then I go and sit down.