V-Flyer

Was travelling via work, so had to book the ticket via our corporate agency - so ended up with an O class ticket with no option or change to upgrade with miles. Ah well.

Initially had a seat in the bubble booked, but come checkin time, I had been moved downstairs. Queried this and the general consensus was that it was probably due to a light load - and so it turned out to be the case.

My new seat, 43G was an aisle seat in the middle 4 - the seat next to me was empty, as was the whole extra legroom row on my right, so plenty of space to spread around. Bonus was my colleague who was in front of me is not a recliner due to his back, so my fear of being cramped was never realised.

I was surprised at the leg room available when the seats were upright. I am sure there was less in 2008 when I took a nightmare trip in econ from LAX to LHR.

Now onto the flight. I am afraid much is a blur as I had met up with some colleagues at the airport bar, had a few pints, and that sort of continued (but now with whisky) on the plane - at times it felt more like a works coach outing than a transatlantic flight, I would say a good 30% of the passengers were colleagues, some of whom I have not seen for years, so it was a case of chatting, catching up, drinking etc.

From what I do remember, the cabin crew were very jolly and relaxed, most likely due to the light load, the food was not too bad either.

We landed on time and off we went to immigration where the new machines confused me quite a bit so an agent helped me out .

In a way, I am glad I couldn't upgrade as given the choice, I would have. I now know that econ with VS is passable on short trips. I think I could happily do New York in econ. MCO was pushing it a bit, though I didn't really feel it on the outbound. (but I did on the return...). as for LAX - never [I am off to LAX this weekend on holiday and used miles to bag for G rewards so UC here I come...]

Thank you for your TR. I am pleased that Y didn't seem too bad but I wonder how much that was due to lots of leg room and perhaps a slight alcoholic haze ?

Seriously, one's experience of a trip can be affected by a lot of things - many of them out of one's control - so the same flight, same seat can produce very different results.