This is a Trip Report from the Economy cabin
Ground Staff
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This was the first of about 11 flights on our Round The World trip booked through Virgin on the 'Great Escapade' ticket scheme with Singapore Airlines and Air NZ.
The Friday afternoon traffic was mercifully very light and the GF's dad dropped us off at T3 only an hour and a half after leaving home (some 45 miles away)[y]. The previous day we had done OLCI and secured 32A/C near the front of economy. Note here - these seats only have one window rather than the usual two and the wing is right in the way so there's not too much of a view, first of the plane is a big plus though.
Anyway I digress... the previous day my GF's dad (an FC Gold) had surprised us by securing Clubhouse passes through work so once we had bag-dropped it was off through the zoo of security to try and find the Clubhouse. One amusing moment was when an Egyptian-looking family was queue-jumped by a BAA staff member because 'they had a 4 o'clock and it's now 4.30' I'm not ashamed to admit we both looked at each other and shared a quiet laugh about that!
We had never been into the CH before but it was an amazing experience. Plenty of Champagne, a CH burger, a back massage and general relaxation was sooooo much nicer than the T3 mess outside.
Boarding was called at about 9.45 and we walked miles to gate 42 (I think), straight onto the plane and into our seats. Ladybird was the a/c with the new (and improved) economy seats. Immediately alarm bells were set off (thanks to TR reading on here) when a member of CC spent the whole of boarding gossiping to her friend in 31C. Thankfully she did stop at push-back and didn't return but my suspicions were later confirmed.
We took off about 20 mins late with an 11h 30m flight time. One thing we noticed was that on the north-facing side of the a/c we could see that it never got fully dark outside, we could always see a sun-set like sky on the horizon until it got light.
Now here's the bad bit i'm afraid - the crew and food:
- the captain announced there were 13 which seemed very low for a full flight, and only about 5 were ever-present in economy.
- only two of those 13 were non-Chinese. Now I understand Chinese representation is essential for communication but I fly a British airline for a reason.
- dinner eventually came over an hour in to the flight and was frankly awful. Some sort of noodle concoction which tasted of nothing much.[n]
- it took the crew until 4 hours into the flight to turn the cabin lights out. We both find sleep impossible during the flight if the lights are on, and had to wait until nearly 3am for that to happen mainly because of the chaos that was the duty-free service. I also noticed that the FSM came through the cabin at the most 3 times in the flight and each time the other CC either turned the lights on, off or did some work!
- the crew managed only one water run, unacceptable in my view.
- the crew did not make it clear to us that HK landing cards were essential for UK citizens, which we only found out on approach to HK.
- there were only some frankly pathetic little oatcakes left out in the Y galley, what happened to biscuits etc?
We each slept on and off for about 5 hours and took a wander to the rear galley where the aforementioned gossiping crew member was standing. We struck up conversation with her, and I asked her about the route and how long she was staying in HK and Sydney, she replied in that way that makes everything seem like it's such an effort and then said 'I can't wait to go home'. [:0] Why are you crew then was what I nearly said, 'oh right' was what I actually said. She did have a genuine interest in flying when I told her about our A380 flight but we were left with the feeling that she generally wasn't that bothered about her job. She even mentioned 'did you hear what happened to that Qantas 747?' which I deliberately hadn't mentioned to my nervous-flyer GF. Very unprofessional in my view.
So... we landed 40 mins early, and were in our hotel by 7pm which isn't bad, but sadly (CH aside) this Virgin flight was very disappointing indeed, and nowhere near the quality of the crew we had back from LAX last year, who pulled out all the stops to make it a great flight when we were 6 hours late. SQ have already shown VS up on our flight SQ857 from HK-Singapore with a full service and 2 water runs on a 3 1/2 hour flight on a fairly old feeling 777. Will be interesting to see what it's like tonight on a brand-new A380.
Cheers guys, and thanks for reading!
James[:)]
Always planning a trip somewhere!
