This is a Trip Report from the Premium Economy cabin
Ground Staff
Food & Drink
Entertainment
Seat
Cabin Crew
On the day, we travelled out by taxi, dropping off three of us. The journey was very fast (a little bit too fast at times for us in the back). We meet a further friend and check-in at the Upper Desks. No wait and bags tagged and off to the lounge. Made a short detour landside to WHSmiths - usually shorter queue than airside, but today the credit card machine wasn't working and rather than logging onto a different till, she was making everyone pay cash!
Fast track security today was a bit slower than normal - more related to ignorant people in front rather than the staff. Further short detour to Boots and then off to the lounge. When we arrived it was relatively quiet - we bagged some seats and started off with some champagne (of course). We managed to bag one haircut between the four of us. As we wanted a booth, we actually asked if we could reserve one. A couple of us had a shower and freshen up and then it was off to get some food. The choices were good - especially the burger. Service for drinks was a little slow - you have to forgive them though as there several staff off as they couldn't get in due to the weather. As the afternoon / evening progressed, the restaurant got very busy and they were having to turn people away (which some people really didn't like). We managed to keep the booth the whole time - well we did have dessert as well!
We left the lounge on the second call to realise it was a bus gate (Gate 24). When we got there, we realised that there was no actually boarding going on. We were in 24D and in 24E was the BA flight to Madrid - they had an annoucement that the delay was due to their aircraft being cleaned. Later this became apparent that this was a blant lie on behalf of BA (they should at least be honest). Eventually after lots of VS staff going in and out, an annoucement was made to explain why we weren't boarding. Basically the BA bus drivers were refusing to move their buses as it was "too icy" to do so. This meant, that although our bus driven by non-BA unionised staff, our bus was now blocked in and although he would drive off because of the BA issue, he was stuck. They had no idea how long this stand-off was going to take, but they were also investigating moving the plane to a different gate that was non-bus dependent. I cheekily asked if


Once everyone was on board, the deicing started - no aircon during this time for some reason. This took ages and the there was a further annoucement, that the cockpit windows now needed to be cleaned as they were covered in de-icing fluid. All in all we left getting on for two hours late.
The flight was full and the service was efficient. I miss the pre-dinner drinks round, but suppose it is a late evening flight. The food was good - like the fact that they have improved the starter on the tray from the previous leave salad.
The only other thing I want to comment on is the entertainment. Now I realise that times are hard but the non-on demand entertainment system is so useless. This was the second of the month - the seat back magazine was the November issue, the titles on the entertainment system were December and the actual films didn't correspond and were a mix of November and December films. We tried to watch Monsters. This was a new film (ie only having been used for December). THe quality was appauling - if you think of the adverts at the cinema on film piracy and the ones that supposedly have been filmed in a cinema and then sold on - well those would be HD quality compared to what VS was showing. Maybe they had a pirate copy and I should call FACT to report VS for film piracy. Get you act together VS and if you have to keep the system (I understand that) then actually use tapes that can be watched and don't look like pirate copies!! Rant on this one over!
Anyway managed to get some sleep and we arrive around 1am. Immigration was empty - my odd question this time was "have you been to the US before".....whilst looking at pages and pages of US stamps!
Luggage was reality quick to come off and then it was off to find our Carmel Cars taxi and head to the hotel.