VS044 LAS-LGW 13 Aug 08 (Upper)

This is a Trip Report from the Upper Class cabin

Ground Staff

Food & Drink

Entertainment

Seat

Cabin Crew

As per usual I arrived at LAs for 10am when check in opens. The priority lines were all set out, I havent seen these before. However only one desk was open, so I stood behind 2 couples whilst waiting to check in. Please don't take this as a negative, I am just very happy to be able to dump my bags and head back to the Strip without the worry of having to get back and make check in on time.

A very nice older gentleman was doing the passport/security question checks and for the first time veer I heard him recomending people head back to the strip. I have always felt a touch sorry for the people who head staright off to security a full 6 hours before take off. Terminal 2 is no place to be for 6 mins let alone 6 hours.

Check in agent was friendly and I was assigned 12A, not knowing we were going to be on a LHR plane, I tend to enjoy the seats at the front most part of the cabin on the LGW fleet.

I came back to the airport around 2.30pm, there was no queue at security which was a suprise, so I was in the lounge within 5 mins.

As always seems to be the case, the lounge was empty. I grabbed a 7up and some cookies and decided to send some email. The WIFI in LAS is complimentary all over and I always seem to have excellent reception where ever I am [y]

I should add, that my original departure date was Aug 4th from LAX, but I was checking for G's LAS-LGW and the 13th showed up so I switched. Maybe I was lucky and this LHR plane was scheduled for today and I grabbed some of the escess occupancy.

Boarding was called, I closed down the laptop, returned my glass to the bar and made my way to the gate. Only boarding wasn't yet happening. After a few mins UC/AU/PE etc etc boarding was called, but the cordons were still around the gate. I saw one guy let himself inside the cordoned off area and decided to see what happened, they let him board, so I followed as did a few others.

The UC cabin was different than it should have been, then it dawned on me that this was not a LGW plane, perhaps 12A should have given it away, but I was extremely tired and not really paing much attention to what was happening around me.

OJ, Champers or water were offered as I sat, I opted for the OJ. The cabin crew never asked if I knew how to operate the suite or if I had flown Virgin before, which I think is the first time I have not been asked when flying UC. Also on my last few flights from LAX, there has been a menu to hand for pre ordering breakfast, I intended to ask for one but the next thing I knew, I was in bed. I am not sure when we took off or how I managed to get into bed, but somehow it happened.

I awake properly around 1.5hrs before landing, we are due to land on time. I assume we took off a little late as we didnt get into LGW early which is normally the case with an on time departure.

I had a quick breakfast of Special K, fruit bowl and bacon sandwich, all of which were delivered only moments after being ordered. With no time to watch a movie, I opt for the ipod to pass some time, only 50 mins still to go, the crew collected all the Virgin headsets and even those of us with our own, were not allowed to continue using them. This seemed a little premature, but I am not one to argue. I dont remember having to put away my own headphoens so early before though.

Landing was perhaps the smoothest I have ever experienced, we departed the plain quickly. We had to wait in the baggae hall for nealy 40 mins, but once the bags arrived, priority baggae worked perfectly, at least for me, mine were maongst the first 4 bags off [^]

So you were drugged, da da da daaaaaa[:?]

I operated vegas two day before and we had the LHR a/c as well. I had to have four crew working up from the economy cabin as senior crew due to the much larger J cabin, which is probably the case on your flight as well. Therefore the crew were not trained in the J service, which is likely why you didn't get asked the questions you normally do. On The LGW a/c there are only 2 senior crew, but on the LHR a/c there are 6. So if there is an a/c change crew have to work out of rank. Even so they shouldhave been briefed by the CSS as to how to deliver the service and it's a shame it wasn't up to standard.

Originally posted by virginboy747
I operated vegas two day before and we had the LHR a/c as well. I had to have four crew working up from the economy cabin as senior crew due to the much larger J cabin, which is probably the case on your flight as well. Therefore the crew were not trained in the J service, which is likely why you didn't get asked the questions you normally do. On The LGW a/c there are only 2 senior crew, but on the LHR a/c there are 6. So if there is an a/c change crew have to work out of rank. Even so they shouldhave been briefed by the CSS as to how to deliver the service and it's a shame it wasn't up to standard.

I totally forgot to put in my original report, that UC seemed to have maybe 10 people in it. Two of whom were crew.

The service was not poor, although I dont really ask for much service when onboard, I tend to sleep [|)]. Just a few of the service points, like offering to show how the suite works, were missing.

I will say that when ever anything was asked for, the service was perhaps faster than I have experienced or witnessed for quite a while.

Out of curiosity, how soon before landing, should we have to remove our personal earphones ?

I turn the IFE off at about 30 mins prior to landing but you will find other FSMs who turn it off before this. There is nothing written as to when we switch it off, but the crew are supposed to have collected in all the headsets before the seat belt signs come on for landing, so that all they have to do is then secure the cabin. 50 mins does seem a bit premature, but also sometimes the captain gives us a time to work on and then this changes in the last stages of the flight due to a different routing in or becasue of circling so might seem like the IFE is turned off way too early but crew thought they would be landing sooner.