V-Flyer

Did online check in at T-24 or thereabouts and got the expected seats. Arrived at LHR and when the better half got there dropped the car with the meet and greet from MGP (highly recommend them). Interestingly the driver said that BAA were changing the location of the return leg from the concourse to the top level of the car park, this makes sense as it is difficult to know where to wait for the return of the car although it is not clear whether the drop off will be at the same place leaving the M&G for the official BAA one.

Bag drop un-eventful, no queues to speak of though the person in front had a problem with the payment for an additional bag (they had paid online but the payment had not recorded) which delayed things a bit. Thought this would take time to sort but pretty efficient. I wonder why they do not have a snake queue to the desks as it is irritating to be on the slow moving one!

A quick bite to eat in the terminal and then to boarding.

Down at the back and oh my – how cramped are the seats. This was an Airbus 340 and my past trips with VA have all been on 747s. But I am sure there was space between my knees and the seat in front on the past flights. This time the only way to not have knocked knees was to put them either side of the seat in front as far as possible. Even my wife – who is shorter than me – had the knee problem. Is it my bad memory or are he seats closer together in economy on this plane?

Take off delayed by 90 minutes due to the strike in France – they were not allowing too many planes through the Marseille corridor apparently and any other routing would have taken just as long as the wait.

Food ok – nothing to write home about, but the special vegetarian meal for the better half looked and tasted nicer than my own beef.

My last long haul was with Singapore who, to be honest, beat every aspect of this flight - seat space superior, food better, attentive attendants even in the back and just a general air of doing it better. Even the entertainment was better. Whilst the films are pretty similar the TV channels are superior – I put this down to having more than one episode of a series available (VA had one episode of CSi where Singapore had 5 as an example!).

Arrived in JNB just 45 minutes late and after a quick immigration and baggage collection transferred to an SAA flight down to Cape Town.

For information the SAA flight had much more leg room – for just a two hour hop down to Cape Town compared to the 12ish hours on the VA flight.

Thank you for the TR, sorry to hear that your ECO experience wasn't up to scratch.