VS200 LHR-HKG 4 Jan 07 (Econ)

This is a Trip Report from the Economy cabin

Ground Staff

Food & Drink

Entertainment

Seat

Cabin Crew

Now for my trip back to Wellington we decided to have a 4 day stopover in Hong Kong.

Came down from Glasgow on the 11.30 BD flight. Uneventful flight & everything on time

We were supposed to hook up with some friends for an hour or so in London but they couldnt make it due to a family emergency, thankfully nothing serious but my attention now turned to the 7 hours I hat to look forward to in the clubhouse.

VS200 LHR-HKG
Equip: A346

Check in:

Did OLCI the night before & it worked a treat. Just casually walked up to drop the bags off thanking my lucky stars I didnt need to wait in the other queues for the kiosk bag drop & normal check in.

Got through security relatively quick, well by Heathrow standards anyway.

Clubhouse:

Arrived in the clubhouse & found a seat near the bar. Champagne was soon ordered for me while the wife was on the softies as shes 6months pregnant. After the 1st drink we went & booked ourselves some treatments then it was food time along with more Champagne. We both had the CH burger & boy was it good. We then went over & relaxed in front of the projector on 1 of those great big leather sofa things, boy where they comfy.

We phoned the mother in law from the library & she informed us that she wanted to come out to NZ for a holiday & could we book her up there & then. Spent a half hour on the tinternet & got her booked on Air NZ. I disappeared to the bar for a while, while the wife slept & made some serious damage to the champagne. It was soon 5.30 & time for our treatments. I had a facial & the wife just had a massage. Back to the bar again & then more food. This time I had the curry, again it was great & it was washed down with a bottle of champagne, well thats what the waitress said I had. It was now nearing time for the fight so I decided to plonk myself at the bar again & have a few single malts, just for medicinal purposes of course.

That was my 1st time in the CH & WOW, it is the dogs bullocks. I thoroughly enjoyed the 7 hours I spent in the CH. The staff where fantastic, the food was brilliant & its just a great place to spend a few hours before a flight. Unfortunately its all down hill from here on.

The flight:

Well, the least said about this the better a total horrible experience & hopefully Ill never have to go through such uncomfort again.

1st of all the seat pitch was minimal. Im not an overly tall guy (6ft) & I was really cramped. Im not a heavy guy & I found the seat narrow. In general it was just a really uncomfortable seat. The fact that the cabin was unbelievably warm didnt help. I found myself sitting in the toilet for half an hour at a time to get some cooler air.

Not long after take off dinner was served. Was a choice of creamy chicken pasta & beef something, cant remember. I opted for the pasta & it was almost inedible. The pasta was really undercooked, the sauce, if you can call it that was almost solid & the square piece of chicken that was on top could have been used as a bouncy ball. I had about 2 fork fulls & though enough is enough. It took quite a while for the trays to be cleared after dinner, then again, maybe it just seemed like an age given how uncomfortable we where.

I couldnt get to sleep on this flight no matter how hard I tried. However, V.Port is obviously excellent with a great selection of movies, music & TV shows. I watched some Only Fools & Horsed & listened to some music.

Got up a few times to grab some juice/water from the self service area & the crew came round on drink runs a couple of times.

A couple of hours before landing breakfast was served. Thankfully it was a million times better than dinner. I opted for the full English which was actually quite good. Just prior to this point our V Port knackered on us. It was just isolated to our 2 seats, the reset it a couple of times for us but no bananas. Thankfully it was towards the end of the flight & not the beginning though so not a huge deal.

Now on to the crew. I hope no offence is taken here but I found the majority of them funny & not in a good way. I dont want to call them unprofessional as thats maybe a bit extreme. Some examples; 1 female crew member constantly chewing gum with her mouth open making that annoying chewing noise, this was done all flight inc meal services & when communicating with myself & others. She also referred to me as darling which I hate, especially from someone who is obviously younger than me, btw Im only 26; 2 crew members shouting at each other in there native language (Cantonese I think) it wasnt an argument but it was so loud & right beside me. The decimal level of the noise was my problem; 1 crew member (male) wore a black jumper (is that part of the uniform?) that was tired, old & tatty looking & to be quite frank it should be in jumper heaven. There are a few other things I can mention but enough is enough.

We arrived a little early & boy was I glad to get off that plane.

As you can probably gather I was totally under whelmed by the in-flight experience. I have 1 more flight booked with Virgin in economy & after that I wont be flying up the back with them again. It simply doesnt represent value for money when compared with other economy products in the market. I have no qualms about flying upfront with them in case you think Im throwing my toys out the pram.

Thanks for the TR BJ! The CH is a haven away from LHR T3 I just love spending some time there before getting on the plane.

Sorry to hear that you had a bad flight down the back, sounds like the crew weren't very professional at all, chewing gum?? [V][V]

Fingers crossed for your next flight,

Dominic

Originally posted by BIGJOCK
Some examples; 1 female crew member constantly chewing gum with her mouth open making that annoying chewing noise, this was done all flight inc meal services

Ouch! I think that might be a food hygiene violation, chewing gum while handling food!

One of my staff is Cantonese, and she'll get off the phone, I'll ask her if she had an argument with one of her family, and she'll say 'No'. She just sounds like she's arguing. A lot. [;)]

Remember, to HKG, you now have service on one of ANZ's lovely 744s. If I had to fly down the back to HKG, I think that would be my choice.

Thanks for the TR, and what a shame that it was a bad, as well as uncomfortable, flight.

Mike

As a matter if interest I have noticed that you were flying economy so how did you manage to get into the club house as others have mentioned that its only for passangers flying UC. Not looking good for VS for economy is it?

PORSCHE -- He may be FC Au or have some similar status with a partner airline.

BIGJOCK (god I love that name...) -- I will state this gently but could your discomfort have been fueled by, well, erm...all the fuel you took on in the CH? I marvel at your liver's ability to operate.

The service and food issues, however, are inexcusable. It's a shame you had to endure them.

GJ

Thanks for the TR[:D]

she also referred to me as ÒdarlingÓ which I hate

Yes, I dislike that too, although there's much less of that in PE/UC thankfully.

VS.

As a one of a few peoeple who have done SYD-HKG-LHR in one hit in Y (why is it that it seems most TR's are from people who've travelled in PE and UC?[}:)]) I can say without fear of contradiction that BIGJOCK's description is pretty close to what I experienced going in the other direction [:(].

Seats are INCREDIBLY uncomfortable in Y, both in terms of recline and width; it may be there is an intent to improve the seating, but how long will that take??? Food is, generally, between poor and rubbish [:$]with the odd exception, but it really is an exception if it's anyhthing better than edible. I've travelled a number of times recently at v. short notice and had to take whatever ticket I can get, usually a Y ticket, and therefore have had the chance to compare the cabins [?].

Believe me, on an especially long sector such as HKG-LHR with +1.5hrs for headwinds, Y is not enjoyable, its really quite unpleasant. I for one shall be investigating ANZ in the future, especially as they (I hope) have suites up the front [}:)].

It's a shame that VAA is so poor compared to other carriers in Y (in my experience), but there you go - we all have to balance a desire to be a FF with a carrier (with the good and bad points that go with being a FF with each carrier) and quality of the product. I think for me it's going to be VAA for UC and most PE, and a better carrier for Y. There again, did just get my Au card so I can largely avoid the 'crap food' problem for the next 13 months [}:)].....

LHR-BOS is about my tolerance level in Y nowdays,even with a very liquid lunch in a lounge, thanks for the TR BIGJOCK[y]

What were your seat numbers??? Also, what's the self service area thing like? Is it just water there or are there snacks and things to eat?

Yep my SYD-LHR flight was about the same, FA's yapping all flight how they had a long rota etc (all of them were very early 20's), warm water to drink...

Originally posted by BelfastFlyer
FA's yapping all flight how they had a long rota etc (all of them were very early 20's)

Hehe.. on a recent flight, at the UC bar, I made some sympathetic comment about the shortened New York stopover for FAs, and then had to endure a 30 minute whinge from several of them about all sorts of aspects of their job! Should have kept my mouth shut!

Originally posted by BIGJOCK

Well, the least said about this the better a total horrible experience & hopefully I'll never have to go through such uncomfort again.
.....

When I hear these stories it reminds me about how I justify J/F now.

My final straw in Y longhaul was about 11 or 12 years ago on a DL flight when I got stuck on my own in a middle seat of an MD-11 (2-5-2 config) next to an otherwise delightful young lady of the Salt Lake City persuation. I had my book, a Howard Stern autobiography, so she insisted on showing me hers - but in hers the words were a lot closer together and had numbers in the margins. Needless to say I promptly popped a couple of Nytols and chucked the blanket over my head.

Tnx for taking the time to make the TR! I think if I'd been in the same situation I too would have knocked a fair few back prior to boarding.

Howard

Big Jock,

Great TR with some shocking service thrown in. Hopefully I'll never have to endure that length of flight in Y. Your company in the CH would have been brilliant if only to have a fellow Scot (I presume) beside me at the bar.

Iain

Originally posted by Howard Long

she insisted on showing me hers - but in hers the words were a lot closer together and had numbers in the margins. Needless to say I promptly popped a couple of Nytols and chucked the blanket over my head.

Was she riding her bike up and down the aisles? [}:)]

GJ

Big Jock, a great TR.

My last 'experience' of Y on VS was on a LGW-MCO-LGW round trip. Suffice it to say it's an experience I am in no hurry to repeat, ever. I am far from tall and found the seat pitch to be OK, only as long as the person in front did not recline their seat, which they invariably did for just about the entire flight.

The less said about the Y food on VS the better - certainly the following bit off the VS website about their Y food makes me laugh... 'You can forget the usual jokes about airline food, ours is delicious' (Taken from the 'What's on board' link, then the 'Economy' link). If the Y meals are really this delicious, let's see SRB eat them for a week (with full press / media presence, as he always likes them to be there when he has a point to prove about his airline / one of his companies).

This single experience of flying in Y on Virgin was enough to make me not want to do it again. I will certainly do all I can to ensure that my future VS flights take advantage of keenly priced K or Z fares.

I can only hope that some of the VS marketing people get bumped back into Y on a few of their upcoming flights to see how the 'service' is for the masses down the back. Better still, send the bean counters responsible for the UC Scrooge Pack down there - second thoughts, don't, as the Y anenity kit is better than the UC one at the moment!

James

Just to clarify, the black jumper is uniform, and it would probably look better if we didnt have keep it for 18 months before being allowed to change it for a new one.

BIGJOCK (god I love that name...) -- I will state this gently but could your discomfort have been fueled by, well, erm...all the fuel you took on in the CH? I marvel at your liver's ability to operate.

Calm down GJ. Bigjock - good TR and thanks for reminding me why I save my pennies not to do Y. As for the heat ... well, the liver is a source of internal heat and after the bottle/s (?) of champagne and malts it might just be working a little hard [}:)]. That said, it appears to be VS policy to make their customers' sweat in flight and I've requested numerous times that they turn it down!

Thanks for sharing the journey BigJock - I'm suprised you made the dinner service, 10/10 for making full use of the services available in the CH![:p]

Hope you next trip in Y is a significant improvement...[:D]