This is a Trip Report from the Premium Economy cabin
Ground Staff
Food & Drink
Entertainment
Seat
Cabin Crew
For those of you who didn't read my September 2012 trip report (shame on you!
) UC to Barbados, I suffer from flight/airport anxiety and that flight was my first long haul flight for a few years.But now I've done it once, there's no stopping me again, so we were off to California!
Shame there isn't a direct flight to LA or SF from Manchester as we didn't particulary want to include Las Vegas in our itiniary (we got married there in 2008 and spent 7 nights there and whilst good, I wasn't desperate to get back) but we didn't really want to fly from Heathrow so we thought we'd start and end in Las Vegas.
Unfortunately we soon discovered this was an Airbus A330 flight which meant no UC, which was a shame as I've got a taste for it now, but hey we could scrum it again in PE for 1 flight. Incidentally my return TR (soon to follow) on 31 March 2013 was on a B747 so we were in UC for that.
So the day of the flight arrived and after a restless night's sleep (flight nerves) I was ready for it. Now we only live 10 minutes from MAN, so we've no need to worry about traffic conditions etc and so we'd booked a taxi to drop us off 75mins before the departure time (we'd checked in online).
Arrived at T2 to a fairly empty terminal, and was greeted by a lovely VA lady who's first sentence was "Flying economy today Sir?"
Now I know I was born and raised in Barnsley, but that fact isn't tatooed anywhere on me! 
After I'd set her straight she let us down the PE line, which wasn't actually a line as there was no-one in front of us. The economy line looked to have about 5 couples in it as well.
Dropped the bags off, through security in about 10mins (we'd paid the £3.50 each for fast-track). It would have actually been about 2mins if it wasn't for 2 things;
1) why do people insist on carrying what looks like their entire life belongs on their person? When we arrived in the fast track security area there were about 6 people between me and the scanner. 5 men and 1 woman. Every single one of them bleeped through the metal detector and they always look so surprised when asked if they've anything in their pockets and they start pulling out coins, keys, belts, mobiles..... This process really isn't rocket science! You take everything out of your pockets and off your person, put it in the tray and walk through the machine in just the clothes you are wearing. I think I had on socks, shoes, jeans and a polo shirt. No bleeping, no holding up the line, nice and simple!
2) they had 1 male and 1 female security person, so when a guy walked through and bleeped he had to be manually gone over with that magic wand of theirs but again only the male could wand the male, and vice versa. So if a guy was next in line, he couldn't go through until the security guy had wanded the male who'd set it off. So nothing was moving. Again not rocket science that you might need 2 male staff and 2 female staff so the line keeps moving!
Anyway rant over.
Once through we had chance to have a quick look round the duty free and other shops and we were boarding before we knew it.
Boarding was at a remote terminal so we were bussed out and then climbed a covered stairway to the door.
Once onboard settled in to seats 24A and B, near the rear of the PE cabin and was offered a sparkling wine by the cabin crew.
We didn't have long till push back as we were amongst the last 20 people to Board, and the Captain announced that there were 302 (I think) passengers onboard. The PE cabin was pretty full.
The flight time was to be a quick 10hrs 10mins, which I saw a few people looked pleasantly surprised at.
Smooth take-off and drinks service came round after 30 minutes in to the flight. A G&T was gratefully accepted.
The meal was a bit non-descript, in fact I don't recall what it even was, it was that good!
One thing I heard a few people commenting about was that they do seem to be noticeably cutting back (with the little touches). After the meal and a little bottle of wine, I don't actually recall them coming round with another drink offering. I asked a couple of times for a drink (so did quite a few others) and they brought it, but they weren't freely offering them.
A couple of films later and a little snooze and we were an hour out and the crew were readying the cabin for landing.
Beautiful clear skies over Nevada and a great view of the strip when coming in to land.
Disembarked from the door at the front of PE, into a relatively empty immigration hall. Approximately 30 people in front of us, and took about 40mins to get to a desk. I would have hated to have been sat at the back of the flight
Picked up the bags and took a free shuttle to the rental car terminal which is about 3 miles from the airport, picked up the car in 10mins and headed off to California for an adventure!
Overall it was a good flight, obviously not in the same leaugue as UC but then again it's not designed to be. The seats were comfortable and entertainment system was great but I felt the service and actual offerings were a little lacking at times. Can't quite put my finger on it, but it felt like they'd made 1 cut back too far.
A more detailed UC TR of the return flight to follow shortly
