VS040 ORD-LHR 1 AUG 13 (Upper Class)

This is a Trip Report from the Upper Class cabin

Ground Staff

Food & Drink

Entertainment

Seat

Cabin Crew

thought i'd start my TR early; whilst still on the ground in the Swissport lounge at O'Hare. What can i say? it's no clubhouse that's for sure. Arrived just after 3pm for the 6pm flight & the lounge was full of other airline PAX but within half an hour it has emptied down to less that 10 people.

There's a fridge full of beer & a reasonably well stocked help yourself bar but food is vey limited. when i walked in there was a finger buffet with a sign stating 'reserved for cathy pacific guests' (not that i was taking any notice ). As soon as their flight was called the sign came down & the rest of us mere mortals were officially allowed to claim the leftovers. Right now on the snack table there are some crudites, some shrink-wrapped sandwiches & some very suspect looking boxes of 'instant beef meal'

looks like all is running on time, i'm still not sure if a 90 minute transfer will give me enough time for a quick shower in revivals before a brisk walk across to T1 for the LR to MAN. i'll make that call once we're on the ground i think

Have a great flight

So CC, Seat, Entertainment are only average.... psychic powers at a peak eh

Shame about the food, (instant beef meal - ha ha ha) guess one cannot have it all though.. Odd that they have a separate section for CX.. anyone checking?

Hope ya make the connection

The seat rating is better than the outbound joey ! Any news on that hat?

Had to put something in the ratings to allow me to post, will amend them later. The outbound rating was marked down due to the defective ife

I did wonder if that was the case but then I thought after that the low entertainment score must account for that instead ,what were your thoughts on the seat itself ?

Hope you make your connection :/$

seems I can't edit my premature ratings now but i'll press on regardless. Boarding was painless, no named welcome but I've stopped expecting this now anyway. Unfortunately this was a 343 & had definitely seen better days. I don't know if the maintenance of the old UC cabin has fallen off now that the Dream Suite is rolled out but this one was sadly lacking in any TLC, the overall ambience was like greeting an old friend who has fallen on hard times.

I declined the meal service & opted for a hot chocolate whilst watching a movie to while away the first hour or so until the meal service had wound down & then it was flip over the seat & head down until blighty (well, off the west coast of IRL anyway). Nothing of note regarding the service & an on time gate arrival.

With 90 minutes total connection time I reluctantly bypassed revivals with at least the promise of the servisair lounge at T1 for my Little Red connection for a drink & a croissant. Sadly in my haste I went straight into the Gate 8 area assuming the lounge was where the old BMI domestic lounge was only to be told it was way back in the duty free area after security. With only 10 minutes to gate opening I passed up another breakfast opportunity.

A busy Little Red pushed back on time with some disgruntled passengers complaining that they could see their luggage still on the luggage train. When they still weren't happy after it was explained the bags would be put on the next flight in a couple of hours & delivered direct to their homes, the captain offered to allow them to de-plane & wait with their luggage. Nicely done I thought They politely declined.

On arrival into MAN the curse of the Tristar regional pickup struck again - no car . Rang customer service who advised I go to the the VS desk - there isn't one at MAN, just the check in desks. Their only other suggestion was to grab a cab & claim back the cost through customer services. I decided to head up to the desks where an extremely helpful checker-in-erer rang customer services to confirm that the booking hadn't been made with the local car agent & then not only booked me a cab, he also made sure it was charged direct to VA, and gave me £40 worth of duty free vouchers to use on my next flight. Within 30 minutes I was on my way. Not a bad recovery at all but this is not the first time the ball has been dropped between Virgin & whoever they use locally out of MAN. I will be following up