VS351 BOM-LHR 6 Dec 08 (PE)
Posted: 07 Dec 2008, 11:43This is a Trip Report from the Premium Economy cabin
Ground Staff
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Plane - Maiden Tokyo
Another long ramble.....
Connecting from Bangalore, we arrived a few minutes ahead of schedule at the terminal, courtesy of the very friendly Jet Airways. Both times I was given an exit row without asking. The food and service on board is very good.
When you get to the Terminal, there is a transfer waiting area, the first step is to get a Transfer Ticket from the information booth, then see the Jet Airways Transfer desk. Then wait for the bus to arrive.
We had to wait around 25 minutes, but eventually it arrived, and we were bused outside the airport and to the International part. The security was tighter than last week, and we actually got off at the first stop and walked outside to the 'C' gate where Virgin depart from.
The normal process is to get your bags and then check in, but we wanted row 18 so we checked in first and then got our bags, the Agent held onto our boarding passes until we had our luggage.
Security checks were not really different to those we would expect at Heathrow, and to be honest we were through all the checkin and security checks in around 30 minutes, this included the wait time for the bags to come from Jet Airways. The Virgin ground crew at checkin were very good.
We headed through the Immigration checks to exit the country and headed to the lounge, a coleague who had bene to Mumbai a few weeks back had kind of misled us about it, telling us it was a roped off area, with dodgy food. He was right about the food, I think KFC would have been a better choice, but the Clipper lounge is quiet, well decorated and has a good selection of Beer and Soft drinks and a few nibbles. It was better than the old North West lounge in Boston.
We were called for the 13:40 flight at 13:15, but we decided to leave it until 13:25, however there were still a few people to get on board, and the secondary security bag checks were slowing down the process of boarding, so some passengers were asked to bypass it, unfortunately my colleague and I were not given that option but people just before us and behind us were asked to head on board.
The flight had just under 200 people on board, with a full Economy, PE at 22 and UC with approximately 14 people.
We pushed back around 15 minutes late, but had a much shorter flight time of 9 hrs and 5 mins instead of the normal 10 hrs and 25 mins.
The drinks service came round, although there was some delay, because the guys in the seats next to me were chatting up the female CC. She was very friendly and did n't want to appear rude and break away. What I did learn was that there are 60 Virgin Mumbai based crew, many recently hired.
It was very visible that the FSM was helping with the drinks run in PE, and this would have been an ideal time to spend a moment chatting with the Au members.....
Lunch was served, although the male CC member serving my isle completely forgot about me, and I had to call him back from halfway down the PE cabin, as I wanted to ensure they did not run out of the Chicken and Mash option, as I did not fancy the Curry option, my colleague told me it was very good.
He then brought me the Veg option, and I had to remind him that the Meat option was Gold and the Veg option was green ! The Chicken and mash was ok, the desert was very rich and the cheese took ages to peel of the silver wrapping and was quite tasteless.
The IFE worked well, and I watched a movie before catching some sleep for a few hours. There is a problem to sitting in 18F, is that when the CC charge through the curtain you get hit with it each time, I lost count of the times it hit me and woke me. At one point it almost hit me in the face !
I woke during a drink and juice run, smiled at the crew and they just carried on, a few minutes later one of the non-Mumbai based crew asked me if I wanted a juice, and she came back with it in a real glass. I suspect from a discussion later on that she probably was a little more senior and had checked the passnger list for AU seating.
There was another food run 2 hours before landing, and I went for the Chicken and Pasta, although the pasta was extreemly laden with Garlic.
It was announced that we would be landing at around 17:35 an hour ahead of schedule, instead we did a quick loop over London and landed at 17:45. Once off the plane we had our passports checked at the end of the jetway, which was a first for me, as an IRIS user I keep my passport in my bag.
BOTH Iris machines were working, and we now have a little game whereby we have to get through in one click and no instructions to move back or move lower etc. Luggage was on Belt 9 again, and Priority bags did come off first, although ours were a good 10 mins later.
I got home at around 6:55, which was great considering the original scheduled arrival time.
Over all a good flight and a great trip to India, friendly people, no issues I saw at Mumbai, Bangalore or Chennai airports.
My colleague qualified for AU early, so it was a surprise for him to get it on the ourbound flight, as he was expecting to have to book a flight in Jan to NY to get 1 TP. Despite using his new FC number he was not given an invitation to the Lounge at Mumbai.
There was no Au welcome/acknowledgement, although I did notice the guys doing the chatting up had a number of glasses of champagne sent to their seats from a colleague in UC.
From the 42 flights since Dec 2006 when I first became a gold member, I recall just 1 flight to SFO where this recognition was done. A simple thankyou and a glass of real bubbly in PE was all that was needed, and it was much appreciated.
On Saturday, I'll be making my last work flight with Virgin to Miami for this year , and then back from Kingston. In 2009 I am not sure what my travel pattern looks like, but I feel like looking for a new airline.
Loyalty programmes live and die by how they differentiate your custom as a frequent flyer from anyone else on board.
Mark