VS045 LHR-JFK 6 JUN 14 (Economy)
Posted: 15 Jul 2014, 15:06This is a Trip Report from the Economy cabin
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I needed to be in Houston for a week-long conference for work, so instead of flying with United (due to the last min booking, BA was out of our travel policy), I decided to break the journey by stopping in NYC for a short weekend break
. And of course this meant that I was able to fly with VS and DL. Before the journey, I had a bit of an issue with the seat request. The ticket was booked via our travel agent via DL, so when the online seat plan stopped working 2 days before the flight, I had the joy of playing telephone ping-pong with VS and DL helplines. Anyhow, after wasting over an hour of my time and being told different things (including that 2 reservations had been made for me on the same flight, one with VS and one with DL, and that’s why I couldn’t select seats), it all turned out to be an aircraft change, from a 744 to a A340-300. At OLCI I got myself an isle seat, and was content.
At this point I checked flightstats, and did a dummy booking on VS, to check the availability of the flight. Presumably due to the aircraft change, there was no Y available at all. This is where I started one of my first ever threads here on V-flyer, to see what the chance of an overbooking might be, and I prepared myself (was almost excited!) to receive the “we are looking for volunteers to get on a later flight” greeting at the check-in/bag drop desks, particularly because 1) I didn’t need to be at NYC for a certain time for anything, 2) on my last flight to NYC last year, there was an overbooking, as a result of which Mr W and I were bumped off to a later flight, with a red voucher each (with which we had the first opportunity to visit the Caribbean) and a free upgrade to J on the subsequent flight, and 3) I was travelling alone, and might have been an easy target for being bumped off an overbooked flight.
After much excitement, I was of course very slightly disappointed that all the VS ground staff were very relaxed when I dropped off my luggage, and there was no chaos at all. Lesson learned – never expect to be kicked off a flight just because it may have been overbooked
. So bag drop etc was all very smooth, security didn’t take long and I was at the gate nice and early after a brief browse at the shops at T3. There was another spur of excitement at the boarding gate, where a lovely VS crew member said something that I did not understand as his face turned redder and redder
. After an awkward “pardon”, I realised that he was in fact trying to greet me and wish me a good flight in mandarin, which I do indeed speak , though was very much caught by surprise. I finally responded in Chinese, and was actually very impressed by the attempt. It’s little things like this that makes VS special. I usually feel well looked after by VS, especially travelling alone for work. Of course after this, I texted the OH to let him know of this little encounter, errm, as a gentle “encouragement”, should we say, to continue his own Mandarin learning 
… but I digress. The flight itself was largely drama-free. We left on schedule, arrived on time, food was decent (though by now I had forgotten what I had), and the CC were fine, though not overwhelmingly friendly, as they are on some flights. Economy class was extremely full, with no empty seat in sight. On reflection I think either VS was really lucky that exactly the right number of people turned up as the seats available, or some bumping off/op-ups may have taken place. But hey ho, it’s not meant to be, and I was quite grateful to be getting into NYC in the class I paid for safely, at the time that I wanted
. The plane itself (an A343) was really quite dated and noisy, with the plastic looking slightly yellow, and the old IFE system with the remote control (I had almost forgotten about those). A minor issue was that the remote control for my IFE had a very loose connection, so I was unable to select, change volume, pause or do any other basic functions myself without getting the CC to more remotely control my screen. I was offered a portable DVD player, or to use my ipad… And due to the very full cabin, I was unable to move to another seat where the IFE was functioning properly. After a lot of holding the controller in different positions, I was able to select Play for 2 films (About Time, and The Butler, both of which I enjoyed) and watched them on loop, so it was better than nothing.
About 7 hours later, we landed at JFK, by which time maybe due to jetlag I had developed an unbearable headache. Still, I soldiered on and walked as fast I as I could after getting off the plane, and managed to be one of the first people from VS045 to join the long queue at passport control. The queue was fairly fast moving, and 50 minute later, I was out, and my luggage was waiting for me.
After a smooth transit into Manhattan, I was in bed by 6.30pm (due to the awful headache), and when I woke up again it was 7am in the morning, and thankfully my headache had disappeared and I was ready for a bagel.
I would add here that after the flight I wrote to VS online to offer some feedback regarding the IFE trouble, and within the week I received a really lengthy response to explain that I flew on one of the final 3 A343s in the VS fleet (from 1997), and they are due to “retire in the next few months, and will be replaced by the 787s”. I was pleased to hear that, as I did feel that the aircraft wasn’t great for what I expect in 2014 from VS, and was even more pleased when I was credited with 10k of FC miles
. I was very happy with the service received in response to my feedback, and was surprised by the 10k bonus (I know that BA normally offers 5k on board in Y for a broken IFE). I won’t bore you with what I got up to in NYC for the weekend
, but am planning on sharing the TRs for my onward and return journeys with DL in case it was of help to anyone.
)I politely declined and used my own! 