VS652 LOS-LHR 11 FEB 12 (Premium Economy)
Posted: 15 Feb 2012, 13:06This is a Trip Report from the Premium Economy cabin
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We had dropped our bags from about 9:30 that morning and were at the gate by 10 with Mr. Tinuks looking forward to his 1st ever VS flight when an official from VS came in to announce that the APU could not power up the air conditioning, the aircraft was hot and that boarding would be delayed till the last possible minute. We eventually boarded Cover Girl about an hour later and true to her word the aircraft was hot. We were in there for a while before the entire power in the plane went out. A few minutes later we were told to leave the plane until the cabin temperature could be brought to tolerable levels.
It was at least 2 hours later before we got another announcement that the lack of power had affected the catering and they would not be able to make suitable arrangements for at least 4 hours
. Furthermore, we were told that they needed to hear from London as to whether or not the flight would take off without full catering compliments. Meanwhile, they were making arrangements for refreshments. Guess what the refreshments were. Sanwiches from the supposedly ruined catering on the plane.Anyhow after about an hour and a half they eventually announced that we would not be leaving until 7 a.m. the following day. (Meanwhile, I had seen on the website that it was delayed till 8:30 a.m.). The only bright spot in this entire drama was the service manager who efficiently rebooked the NY connections for us and got myself and the Mr. 2 seats together on the VS009 the next day, altough these were unfortunately next to the toilets. They were gong to put us in a hotel so we needed to have our exit stamps cancelled at immigration and then get our bags and into coaches that would take us to the hotel. So we did all that and were quite literally piled with our luggage into the coach.
So we got to the street of the hotel which to my utter horror was this...
In fairness the rooms didn't look so bad, but the beds were uncomfortable and the towels in the bathroom were grotty. The restaurant staff were highly incompetent and took over 2 hours to serve our meals which doubled our annoyance as we were too busy trying to rebook our connection to eat the lunch offered at the airport.
Anyways, they had us checked out of the hotel by 5 a.m. the next day and didn't come to pick us up for almost an hour and we were left standing outside till the bus arrived
Eventually got checked in after some ineptitude on the part of the ground staff and a 1 hour delay, we eventually boarded G-VFIZ(and got the sorry cards with the miles offer which seems to only be useful if you're a VS FF) around half past 9 and eventually got to experience what a VS PE flight should be. Seats were comfortable, Cabin Crew really efficient and friendly and landed at Heathrow in good time to catch the VS009, althogh this was partly due to the fact VS009 was also served by Bubbles.
I would have loved to do a TR on that leg of the trip but after a long day and no sleep, I was a very grumpy little girl.
