V-Flyer

Hi all.

This is my first ever trip report on my recent first ever Virgin flight, hope you find it interesting and all comments welcome.

Myself and my family flew to St Lucia on the 10th of August 2012, this was our first ever long haul flight and as you can imagine we were very excited!

We decided to upgrade on the way out to PE, as it turns out a good decision. We checked in online which went smoothly and printed the boarding passes and checked the seating nos which were 77s and 78s so I realised we would be upstairs in the bubble which for me was what flying on a 747 was all about so I was getting even more excited, I'm not a great flyer on normal planes so it was nice not to feel nervous!

Drove to Gatwick and got there ridiculously early, went to PE desk and got rid of luggage which went smoothly with helpful staff and no queue which was nice. Once we had gone through sec etc we went to get breakfast at the pub/bar in the corner upstairs that had a good view of the virgin planes (can't remember the name) wondering which one we would be on. Got called to gate and found Pretty Woman waiting for us, realised that this wasn't a refit so slightly disappointed as we waited to board but still excited about the flight. We were one of the first to board and directed upstairs. Wow it's like being on your own little private plane, seats were a little dated obviously and worn but the leg room was great. I'm 6ft 2in so it Was great to be able to stretch out. I liked the storage by the windows, hope they are doing this on the refitted planes. Nice to have a wide aisle so you could walk about with out getting in the way of others. Food was ok, had a few drinks and settled down to watch IFE which was a bit dated and didn't find the choice great but I hear the new system is a lot better on the refitted planes.

All in all I really enjoyed the whole PE experience and the flight and can only imagine it will be even better on the refitted planes. A couple of questions that I'm sure have been asked before but if anyone can answer them I'd appreciate it.

1) why aren't the upper class seated upstairs on 747s or have they been before ? And it's been changed

and

2) why are they doing the refits with economy upstairs? Surely it's a more select area and should be left as such, I don't mean to sound like a snob but if you pay more I think you should be in a better area which I think the bubble is.

Hope you enjoyed my report and I will be doing a return flight report soon when we flew back - not such a favourable report!

Just to quickly answer your questions

1) virgin have to offer all classes on the main deck so they comply with disability laws. If they only offered UC on the upper deck those pax who can't manage stairs would not be able fly UC and that isn't allowed. They do offer UC in te LHR 747's but also have a much larger UC cabin downstairs also.

2) they put Y upstairs beause it allows them to maximise their pax yield and therefore profits, which is their aim. They have Y pax on the LHR 747's also so it isn't anything new and lots of other airlines do it also, so virgin aren't unique in doing it.

Many thanks for the reply,

What about airlines who have A380s which don't have each class on the lower deck? For exampl AF and QF have business only on the upper deck?

Is that ok because they only go to airports that do boarding directly to both lower and upper decks??

gingerflyer wrote:What about airlines who have A380s which don't have each class on the lower deck? For exampl AF and QF have business only on the upper deck?

Is that ok because they only go to airports that do boarding directly to both lower and upper decks??

I don't think foreign carriers are subject to our own disability legislation.

Much like some foreign carriers switch on IFE from gate to gate or don't care about wearing headphones during takeoff. They aren't regulated by our CAA which means inconsistencies even when flying from the same airport!

Thank you for the TR.