V-Flyer

Well the five nights in vegas came around way too quickly, but it was an amazing time for my first visit to the fabulous las vegas strip.

We arrived at the airport at 13:15 (LAS time) and when we got to the super modern and clean and bright check in area we were greeted by a friendly Virgin representative who said they had upgrade option available for premium eco and upper class.

I already had purchased the seat plus option for economy and asked how this would be effected should I choose to go for the premium upgrade to which he informed me I would need to claim a refund from Virgin once returned home.

We were then shown to the check in agent who checked the availability and was informed there was only one premium eco seat left so we chose to decline the upgrade and stick with economy.

Security was a bit slow but nothing different than experience at MCO.

Once in the departure lounge we headed around duty free and then to a bar in the terminal opposite the gate E2/E3.

We commenced boarding at 15:40, five minutes after stated boarding commencing time. This was not an issue though.

When it came to the actual boarding it was very haphazard and there was no real control or reasoning like there normally is.

This meant that there was queues getting onto the aircraft (more than normal) and when on the aircraft you had to wait for people faffing in the aisles.

Although the above we still managed to push back on time and took off on time for a flight of 9 hours wth 327 (I believe) on board and a number of cabin crew as well.

The aircraft was English Rose. This was my first ever Virgin plane that I had flown on and indeed my first ever flight I had taken so to have it take me back home was fab.

The flight itself was pretty un-eventfull with no turbulence and no major technical issues etc.

We did have the one passenger who wanted to get away with not paying for the upgrade to a extra leg room seat and tried stating they had paid £80 on the ground for this. The cabin crew had explained this to her that she would not have paid that much and the schedules they have do not have her recorded in this seat. The woman then continued to become irate to the point the cabin service supervisor came along and attempted to defuse the situation to which in the end the passenger decided she would pay. The cabin service supervisor did state to the passenger that why did she not inform her of this earlier when she was talking with her and the passenger claims that she did but the cabin service supervisor states otherwise.

The flight continued although that all got a bit heated, when the cabin crew came over to take the payment the passenger started again as this cabin crew member had not been involved to which he politely informed her that he is there to take payment and that she will need to address the issues on the ground. The passenger was still not happy to at which point the cabin crew member stated you can either pay for the extra leg room or you can move back to your allocated seat. To which she decided to pay.

There were other incidents including the same passenger throughout the flight with the cabin crew team but I must say they handled the difficult situation extremely well.

We landed early by over 50 minutes into a very foggy London Gatwick, so foggy we could not see the runway until we heard the wheels touch down.

Disembarking was slow but with so many passengers on board it is not surprising.

When arriving at the baggage hall after clearing the normal customs shambles, the bags were all there waiting and it was straight out to head home.

Overall another great flight and once again reminding me why I always choose to flight with Virgin Atlantic (minus the awkward customer).

Thank you for the TR. It sounds like a good flight apart from the constant moans from the pax. I must say I have witnessed similar antics and whilst the crew deal with it very professionally they must wish they could just open a window and throw them out!

Jacki wrote:Thank you for the TR. It sounds like a good flight apart from the constant moans from the pax. I must say I have witnessed similar antics and whilst the crew deal with it very professionally they must wish they could just open a window and throw them out!

Indeed and there's nothing more they could have done for the pax but they really did handle it well and defused the situation and actually controlled everything including not attracting additional attention or pandering to it, and yup that would be a great option hehe a little closet "sir / madame would you mind popping in here quickly, whoops did I just do that ah well never mind" joking.