This is a Trip Report from the Economy cabin
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After an excellent break in NYC, we headed for JFK with our taxi taking over an hour and a half to get from the centre of Manhattan to T4 having been picked up at 1.30pm. It was early, but having heard horror stories of bad traffic resulting in people missing flights, I didn't want to take a chance. For that reason, I didn't really see the funny side of the check-in agent's quote when she said "wow, you guys are here well early!" even after explaining we did it purely to beat traffic. Maybe it was quite early in hindsight and I'm normally not one for wanting to get to an airport extremely earlier than necessary, but frankly I wasn't prepared to leave it later and, in a way, I was vindicated due to the time it took to get to JFK during an early-afternoon. Unless I had a sense of humour failure?
Anyway, check-in was a breeze again given that ours and the LHR flight was some time away and we went to security which didn't take too long. The time at JFK was killed by a bite to eat, a bit of shopping and hanging around the gate where G-VROM was brought over from a remote stand to our gate - a new 747 for me!
A repeat occurrence of prior queuing at the gate like what happened at MAN took place well before boarding commenced. I know seating is at a premium around the gate, but I really don't think it's necessary. Boarding started under an hour before in the usual order, but with Economy passengers being permitted to board in seat row order with the highest numbered seats first. Annoyingly, a few people sat elsewhere tried to board, but the staff at the gate were good at holding them back. We took our seats in the bubble and the crew came round with water prior to boarding, as well as one of the cabin crew saying that we could go to the galley at the back of the bubble throughout the flight if they wanted a snack or drink in between meals.
Pushback occurred and we were quoted a 6hr flight time. Loadings were similar to the outbound flight so just under 400 passengers. This would have meant an early arrival into MAN, but a long queue of planes waiting to take off at JFK meant this wasn't going to happen. When we eventually took off, it was a bumpy ascent due to winds in the area and there were other bouts of turbulence through the night. 45mins after take off the crew came round with drinks and started the meal service where I opted for the pasta dish. Not long after finishing dinner, the crew cleared our trays away and I settled down to attempt some sleep. I reckoned I got around 4hrs shallow sleep in total. I skipped on the breakfast (Aussie bar) and somewhere over Northern Ireland the captain gave us an update to say that we would arrive into MAN slightly late as the tailwind they were hoping for didn't materialise. We began our descent and were straight in to final descent as it wasn't a busy morning, therefore avoiding the holding pattern TATL flights sometimes take first thing in the morning.
We got to the gate, immigration cleared reasonably quickly and the bags came through within a reasonable timescale. Whilst waiting for our cases, it was noticeable how many had connected onto our flight from JFK.
Overall it was 2 good flights in Economy. A few observations are below: -
[*]Y seats in the bubble of the 747 have extra legroom and are sold as Delight seats. I feel this is worth it, particularly if you're used to flying PE or value legroom.
[*]The overhead bins in the bubble don't appear to be as big as those downstairs and there was one group sat behind us who couldn't get the bin shut despite having a cabin sized suitcase, so one thing worth bearing in mind.
[*]The loadings on both flights were impressive. Although JFK operates on alternate days with ATL from MAN in the winter, I suspect something bigger than the A330 is justified for these flights.
Last edited by VS075 on 03 Dec 2018, 09:42, edited 2 times in total.
