This is a Trip Report from the Premium Economy cabin
Ground Staff
Food & Drink
Entertainment
Seat
Cabin Crew
We had fantastic weather and if I’m honest 30 degrees is a little hot for navigating the NY streets, however the air conditioned subway was a welcome relief!
Our Dial 7 car picked us up at the hotel in Chelsea at 5:15 for the short ride to EWR. One of the benefits of using the VS17/18 route is that you don’t have to deal with traffic at either end! A smooth ride over as the sun rose over the NY streets, I was sad to be leaving as we’d had such a lovely time.
Arrived at EWR at around 5:45, dropped off right out front and straight into the check in area.
Directed to an empty PE desk by a very happy “co-ordinator”. The check in agent was very happy (one of the nicest I’ve dealt with), asked how our holiday was and if we were looking forward to the flight. All checked in very smoothly and handed BP. I had checked in online the morning before, however, for some reason slept through my alarm at 7:45 so didn’t get online until 8:15 by which time the best I could get was SEQ 6/7, however, the extra half and hour in bed was very much appreciated!
The CI agent advised us that there really wasn’t anything on the other side so suggested browsing on the pre-security side and leave it as late as possible to go through. We went down the escalators to the left and noticed the CH, wondered if we could sneak in! Anyway back to reality....
Off to grab a bagel from the food area, huge line, 1 person serving who spoke little English and funnily enough I didn’t bring my Spanish phrase book!
Decided to go through around 6:20. Security was quiet and we were through in no time at all. I was fortunate not to be asked to go through the additional scanner this time, although I had to do this twice on our last trip!
Found a seat by the boarding area near gate 55, as we’d not really paid attention to the weather, when we arrived at the gate we were greeted by a huge storm, lightning, torrential rain, the whole 9 yards!! CNN was playing in the background and said some delays were forecast of around 30 minutes for JFK/LGA/EWR – here we go again we thought....
I like how the US airports give a lot more attention to the fun of VS naming their aircraft, on the flight board it said “Welcome to Maiden Tokyo” which I thought was a nice feature.
However 7:20 came around and boarding call was made for AU,UC,PE to priority board.
This would be my first flight on a 343 and my last....
We were welcomed on board (not by name), found our seats 21 A and C and were quickly offered a welcome drink. Amenity packs were available on the seat which again shows the different approaches by different crew.
To seating area was pretty grubby, the worst I’ve seen on my flights, especially the drink table of the arm rest divide and on the floor, a bit disappointed.
One of the seats in the middle (22 F) I believe had a leak above it – not your normal couple of drops from the air conditioned, a full blown puddle! The CC and FSM were made aware by the passenger who was understandably not prepared to sit in a puddle! The FSM tried putting tissue to block the leak but it was still pouring out, the CC wiped the seat clean. The FSM popped away to locate someone from the ground crew to fix the issue, in the meantime the CC said to the passenger that it’s a full flight and “it will dry out throughout the flight once you sit down” to which the passenger quite rightly said “well I’m not sitting in a wet seat even if it will dry out during the flight!”.
The technician arrived and noted that it was only an air conditioning leak and nothing to worry about, he suggested they blocked it with tissue regularly and it would eventually disappear. The FSM advised the passenger to take her seat and they would see what they could do. The CC did regularly check and changed the tissues however the leak continued...more on this later!
We were advised of a short flight time, 6 hrs 15 which is always nice on the way “home”
. Despite the weather, we were away from the gate at 7:50, however, we had a slight delay of around 20 minutes before take off.After take off, CC handed out menus for dinner. The crew on this flight were friendlier than the outbound but still very procedural, if anything it seemed that the crew were rushing to do their work and spent little time with any passengers – not a problem for me as I’d rather just get on and relax.
Odyssey was turned on. It’s been years since I’ve been on a non-AVOD/V-Port flight and it was terrible. So grainy and jumpy, really needs an update. I had a quick flick to the map before the movies started. I had noticed that were flying west – not just slightly, really far west heading towards Pennsylvania . I thought it may just be the Odyssey system, but the captain came on to say due to bad storms in the area we had to fly around them, adding around 20 minutes to the flight – I’d rather be safe than sorry so no complaints.
Once the seat belt signs were lifted, I decided to pop to the toilet. This is the point I really started to dislike the 343. I quickly realised that PE had to share pop back to use the Y toilets, there were massive queues, 5 deep on either side and lots of pushing in etc. I had really valued the PE toilets on the 346 and after 15 minutes waiting finally got in. However, it was pretty much the same throughout the flight and a real let down.
Back to the lady with the leak....despite the CC best efforts, the leak continued and the poor lady was getting rather wet – the FSM agreed it was unacceptable and moved her forward to UC! Oh how I wish I had the leaky seat hehe.
Breakfast came around shortly after, I opted for the full English as I’d enjoyed this on my previous flight. I found it really tasty (for a plane meal) and had a nice cup of tea to go with it.
Managed to settle down to a movie during this time too, missed the pause option that comes with v-port and when you go back to Odyssey you really value v-port. Fortunately thanks to v-flyer I can ensure I have the best chance of opting for routes where V-port will operate! I watched the Green Hornet which appeared to be the best choice from the options available that i’d not seen before, not a bad film.
Odyssey crashed about 3 hours into the flight and had to be re-booted, only took 10-15 minutes and I decided at this point to get some sleep.
The lady behind us in 22 H and K had a young child and on the whole he wasn’t too bad but after a couple of hours he clearly got bored and decided to back and kick my partners chair and scream! Very annoying when the mother just sat there. After a good 15-20 minutes of continuous disturbance, my partner and I both lost it and said something. After this there were no further problems and the mother looked after her son. I have no problem with kids and the noise is always solvable with headphones or ear plugs but continuous kicking is not on.
After a couple of hours sleep, decided to have a play on the odyssey games, or atleast I tried!! Bejewelled was so slow it was impossible to play and the trivia game was much the same –oh well back to my iphone games. If I flew on the 343 often, my ipad2 would definitely be purchased a lot sooner!
Dinner were served 90 or so minutes out of LHR. I opted for the chilli chicken again as I really enjoyed this on the 46 back from JFK in April but didn’t get to eat it all last time due to the bad turbulence, this time I enjoyed it all.
Landed in LHR with no delays from ATC which was unusual for LHR but perhaps due to the timing of the flight.
Immigration was fairly quiet however someone decided to leave their bag unattended in the line – which of course sparked a security scare! The immigration officier shouted to ask if it was anyones bag and a young lady shouted out from the other end of the line “Yes that’s mine, I couldn’t be bothered to carry it up and down so I thought I’d leave it to collect when I get to that point in the line” to which everyone thought the same “stupid girl!”. She was rightly told off and asked to keep her bag with her at all times.
Through security and out to baggage, priority baggage worked a treat and out of the terminal in no time.
I mentioned in my outbound TR of a bad experience with Quality Parking, part of Purple Parking. When we landed and collected our bags, we called the number as instructed and the phone simply rang continuously. After a number of attempts finally got through to a very stroppy woman who spoke to me like I was dirt on her shoe, I was rather taken back by it!
Proceeded to bus stop 22 to wait for our bus, which were apparently “frequent” but took over 30 minutes, lots of unhappy customers there and complaint already sent! Not recommended!
Overall a good flight, my first daytime return from the USA and feel it does help with jet lag. I won’t fly on the 343 again, I really didn’t like the cabin layout and will stick to the 346 in future with v port.
) .
