V-Flyer

Hi all, its been 2 years or so since my last flight with Virgin.

Doing MAN to MCO which is slated to be a 747 in May. Does anyone know if they still have the VERA entertainment system or have they upgraded?

Only ask as I was recently on an Aer Lingus flight and compared to VERA, their inflight entertainment screens seemed to be far quicker and more responsive and I was very impressed so just wondered if Virgin are lagging behind or i was just in a newer aircraft?

Link to video below:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/xa3qifyBed1ZgAfu9

The 747 IFE is VERA Touch which is the newest and latest IFE system. I flew on G-VROM last week and didn’t notice any slowness or lags etc.

The underlieing system is actually the same on many aircraft and there as basically only a couple aircraft IFE suppliers (Panasonic Avionics or Thales Aerospace are the 2 I know off).

The one thing VS are lagging behind with now though is the screen size especially in the J cabins.

I believe the 4 x VS A332’s now actually have the biggest IFE screens in J of all the fleet.

Grand! Thanks for the reply!

To be honest, i didnt really notice that much lag etc with VERA until i used the system on Aer lingus. It's a bit like noticing how slow your 4-year-old phone is compared to a new one i guess. Looking again i think the ones ive used on previous flights with virgin have all been the Panasonic EX2 while the recent one i used was the EX3 so nippier hardware!

Yeah, i think screen size is going to be the next thing I would really like to see in economy. That or being able to play your own media.

The 744’s and the A333’s use the Panasonic eX2 hardware (apart from G-VBIG which uses the none-touch screen eX lite system)

The 789’s all use the Panasonic eX3 hardware.

The A346’s have the older Matsushita 3000 hardware (which is now Panasonic as well).

No idea what is the underlying hardware on the A332’s though sorry?

mitchja wrote:The 747 IFE is VERA Touch which is the newest and latest IFE system. I flew on G-VROM last week and didn’t notice any slowness or lags etc.

The underlieing system is actually the same on many aircraft and there as basically only a couple aircraft IFE suppliers (Panasonic Avionics or Thales Aerospace are the 2 I know off).

The one thing VS are lagging behind with now though is the screen size especially in the J cabins.

I believe the 4 x VS A332’s now actually have the biggest IFE screens in J of all the fleet.

No touch screen (or bar) on G-VBIG

Can confirm that Aer Lingus A330 uses the exact same system as Virgin, even down to the same games.
The system is a bit more modern and perhaps better, proximity sensor on front for example, but there's not a great deal of difference. I think Virgin still have the additional handset controls which I prefer for volume control rather than the touchscreen only.

BA now use the same system on their refurbished 747s, it's a vast improvement on what they used to have on the 777s.

Is the system provider the same for both airlines by the way?