V-Flyer

First set of trip reports, so go easy!

Usually we fly a couple of times a year to Orlando, usually outside the holiday season which sadly stops us using the Glasgow - Orlando route with Virgin, however for a change we set course for Anaheim.

Read these forums a fair little bit in advance of getting on the VS flight, when we booked around 7 months ago it was listing the flight as a 747, but that soon changed to a A346, again a little searching showed this to be a alright change.

With around two weeks to go, it was swapped again to an A343, upon searching I was a little devastated having read how terrible it was and how people dread flying on it.

I called VS and tried to upgrade to PE, no space left.

So after a short trip on little red, we were in the hut their currently calling Terminal 3 at LHR.

Wandered to the plane when the gate was called and from there things got a bit brighter. VS crew were particularly efficient in getting people into the little glass pen for boarding the flight - the actual aircraft looked fairly clean/well maintained - something Air France could learn from.

Boarding was quick and friendly staff as they handed out random magazines to everyone waiting. Onboard the seats and surrounds looked a little dated but I was expecting that from our last flight being the Dreamliner. IFE certainly looked a good bit older.

Seats were comfy, window was in line (which seems to be not normal on newer aircraft). IFE had an excellent selection, and the music selection took me by pleasant surprise, again good range.

I felt the wait on restart system wasn't too bad actually, since they announced every time it would happen. I would question the logic though in having about every movie 90 minutes and having one at 125 minutes which delayed the whole process. It worked the whole flight - again couldn't say the same on a two month old Dreamliner

Flight wasn't full and some children were handed some sort of tablet, presumably it had better children's content on it for watching.

Good selection of food, lasagne, thai curry and another dish that I now forget. Followed by ice cream, sweets, chocolate, and a pizza slice before landing. Fairly impressed at 5 drinks runs and 2 hot drinks runs - definitely a good step up from BA's economy.

Pilot was a very no nonsense man, but was well appreciated with his three sharp announcements:
- "We're shortly taking off, pay attention to the safety instructions and do not leave your seat, we're taking off on time"
- "We're at altitude, it'll take X time, 3 officers intro"
- "We're landing shortly, take your seat"
Impressively the VS crew knew not to repeat what the pilot had just said, which is rather annoying on other airlines.

Smoothest flight I've ever had, take off felt incredibly slow, long long climb, no turbulence, and near hour long decent for a very soft landing.

Crew were helping passengers move round the cabin once in the air, as there were a fair few extra seats.

Overall very impressed. A346 on the way home.

Thanks for the trip report I agree with you that there is definitely a difference between BA and VS economy offerings with VS crews miles ahead.

Thanks for the TR. A couple of points:

1. Even with the less than 'moden' equipment there are still aspects that impress that tend to get forgotten on the newer kit,

2. I salute your fairness in judging what actually found, having obviously researched what people feel about the 343 on this site.