This is a Trip Report from the Upper Class cabin
Ground Staff
Food & Drink
Entertainment
Seat
Cabin Crew
Tried to do OLCI previous evening, but it wouldn't let me, and said to check in at the airport. Overnight, I got an email from VS Ticketing saying they couldn't pull an 'additional collection', the YQ (fuel surcharge) difference between PE and UC, given this was a mileage upgrade.
Of course not, my card issuer had withdrawn my old card and replaced it with a new one. I'd have thought they would have taken the YQ additional at the time the upgrade was requested, but apparently not.
A quick call direct to VS Ticketing (having left their number in the mail) got an updated E-Ticket in the email within a couple of minutes, and OLCI worked fine now. Stuck with the 22K that I had previously chosen. Not much else worthwhile going spare.
No queues and no hassle when I got to SFO to check-in, seen by an agent straight away, and Clubhouse invite issued. One thing to note is that at SFO, the check-in agents don't always put the UC tags on the bag themselves, the porters do it (the guys who lift the bag from the scales to the belt at the back), so it's always worthwhile keeping your eye open that your bag is tagged correctly before leaving check-in.
Last time I asked, following issues with priority baggage ex-SFO, the SFO station manager for VS confirmed that at SFO baggage was hand-sorted into the priority cans, not automatically as at LHR. He has impressed on his team the need to make sure the bag is tagged properly, such that the tag is not likely to be ripped off in transit through the system.
There was a lot of cheering going on, I think it was something to do with some sports team checking in for the KLM flight. Quite a lot of people scurried off there to see what the noise was. I hadn't got a clue if it was anyone famous, and didn't really care, as I headed up to the Clubhouse, to find Claire at the front desk, who welcomed me back, suggested I enjoy a spot of lunch, and issued a Revivals invite.
The SFO Clubhouse was quite busy, the plumb spots in the red chairs all gone, so I headed off down to the far end, and sat in one of the oversized armchairs.
Had a beer and an acceptable snack of caesar salad, and later the tilapia (which came with 'corn salsa' - basically cold sweetcorn and chopped tomato), but I think they cut the portion sizes down in the SFO Clubhouse again, compared to what they used to be - maybe except for the club sandwich.
G-VROC, sporting the 'No Way BA/AA' slogan arrived a little late, around 2.30pm, but in front of the BA flight and taxied in.
I wonder who thought that wooden wall-cum-bench in the SFO clubhouse was a good idea? Sure, it looks quite trendy. Have you ever tried sitting on it? I think a few cushions clad in UC leather are the way to go here to make it more inviting.
They called the flight quite early (IMHO), at 3.30pm. I knew we had a longish sector time this evening (9h35m), so I wondered if they were aiming for an early getaway, packed up and headed to the gate.
Security was a very quick experience, despite the fiery Italian sounding couple having a fairly large blow-up in front, and when I got down to A8, they were only 'pre-boarding'.
This meant the gate area was a big old scrum, and even though priority boarding was signed, I don't think it was signed clearly enough, and the tensabarrier arrangement at the bottom of the escalator was confusing. So, I just stood to one side and let the queue disperse, but I thought it was a really poor boarding experience, somewhere on a par with the norm at LHR, which really surprised me as SFO are normally pretty good at getting these things right. Once through, boarding was done by two jetways, properly signed and with an agent directing people down the right jetway if they looked lost or heading for the wrong door.
I really wonder if SFO CH should hold back sending the UC pax by about 15 minutes, and then send a VS person down to queue-barge TSA security if it's busy? At least get general boarding well underway, so that the gate room area is less congested, so that UC/PE/Au can actually get to the left hand desk to priority board!
Once boarded, got all dug in for the evening, though it took a while to be offered drinks and whatnot. Pushback was about 10 minutes early at 4.20pm, but we still didn't take off until some time between 4.40 and 4.45pm, from 28L, heading out over the ocean before turning right toward the Golden Gate Bridge, and then North to head for Oregon and Washington State, crossing into Canada near Calgary.
It took the best part of an hour to get the first round of drinks out, and there was a gang of people decending on the bar the moment the seatbelt sign was clicked off, which made me wonder about my choice of seat - had I made a big boo-boo? I think the barflies helped to slow down the first cocktail service by distracting the staff, and when my drink came, the glass was dirty around the rim, and the 'crisps' served with it were some sort of rank oat nacho things with the taste of spicy cardboard. Not a great start.
It was then even longer before dinner orders were taken, and we were a good 90 minutes, maybe more like 2 hours into the flight before tables were laid.
Then there's this weird situation where you have your place setting, the FSM then skips over you when serving the water, and then you get given a bread roll which sits on your plate going cold while you wait a further 15 minutes for your starter (measly 2 slices of duck on a measly salad, with some okay, if slightly unusual maple dressing) to turn up.
Your main - of a decent quality piece of salmon, massacred with a soggy crust, and floating in a grease slick daring to call itself 'beurre blanc' - then turns up immediately after your starter is cleared, and the dessert - a soggy, obviously frozen at some point during it's existence, excuse for a fruit tart - turns up a femtosecond after you've finished your main, with no gap in the middle. Wasn't offered cheese or after-dinner drink such as port.
The whole service flow really needs looking at, as it can be made or broken by the crew on the day.
This crew just didn't feel on the ball. Seemed to be lots of standing around talking, followed by flinging food out at a rate of knots by commandeering the CC from PE (who had already completed their service) to kick start things, rather than knuckling down and turning out the service in a reasonable amount of time.
After waiting for over two hours, the entire dinner was flung at you in 20 minutes. They may as well have just brought the whole sodding lot on a tray. Oh, I remembered that I can get that. It's called a PE meal (or a GNF)!
The UC service flow defintely needs some work doing to it, so that it can maintain a consistent service regardless of cabin size and occupancy, even with variations in crew.
I think that moving to a pre-assembled, pre-plated cold appetiser would help speed up service, as would taking post-departure cocktail orders before takeoff, and maybe even consider taking meal orders before takeoff, or almost immediately afterward?
Watched some brainless movies (once v:port was given it's ritualistic reset by the FSM, after which some of the games didn't work), converted to bed mode, and managed to get about 4 hours slightly fitful sleep. Some bits of the UCS are just a bit too hard for me, and there needs to be better support in the mattress side of the seat. It just seems to be tempurpedic type foam without any sort of under cushioning. It's probably okay if you sleep on your back, but not if you sleep on your front or your side.
I actually thought the Air New Zealand Suite was better for sleeping, I wonder if they use a different foam?
The crew member working our aisle was by my seat almost immediately once I showed signs of waking up, asking if I wanted breakfast - actually, I just wanted water, my throat was so dry I think that I croaked at her - which she brought very quickly. She was very nice and attentive, it's just a shame that the crew as a whole didn't seem to gel, they didn't seem to be able to anticipate each other.
I didn't really feel like much for breakfast, as I was still a bit sleepy. I asked for a croissant, turns out there weren't any. They hadn't been loaded at SFO. Come to think of it, I don't remember seeing any bacon rolls either. So, it's not just booze they run out of now, they also just don't load things in the first place.
So, I just thought 'sod it', and resigned myself to getting breakfast in Revivals and snoozed for the last hour or so of the flight.
Luckily for me, and maybe unfortunately for VS, it was my seat's turn to get an X-Plane survey, where I let rip with little ticks, quite a few of them biased to the negative side... breakfast getting a 'terrible', of course.
I hope that if you actually bother to give a 'terrible', the market research company who processes the X-Planes actually bothers to follow up what was terrible about it?
We made landfall over Northern Ireland, flying toward Liverpool and through the Midlands, with a couple of ritual laps of the Bovingdon hold before making our approach to 27L, with what seemed like a very tight base and short final, touching down just about 10.30am local time, with a fairly quick taxi onto stand 325.
Despite what's been said on here, only one door/jetway was used for unloading, at L2. Dead arrivals hall, quiet baggage hall, my bags were on the belt by 11am, so priority baggage seemed to work okay.
Headed for Revivals for a lovely shower, and to enjoy the breakfast that should have been loaded on the plane in the first place.
A fair to middling flight, turns out the early flight barflies were just that, sleeping after dinner, and I'm glad just to have got some rest during the night.
In summary:
Check In: Great. All smooth, no issues, even the Ticketing issue was proactively sorted before I got to the airport by VS. Shame the boarding experience wasn't great.
Seat: Average. No weird red marks, no pen marks. Lots of ingrained grime down in the join between the leather seat surround and the painted part of the suite. Two defects - the armrest wouldn't stay latched in the up position, and the table was wonky and chipped/damaged. I understand what people are saying about the padding wearing thin on the seat too. Without the lumbar support heavily inflated, it's possible to feel the metal framework of the seatback through the padding. I've already covered what I thought of the bed. I think the duvet is definitely thinner than before, and the pillow seems smaller than the ANZ equivalent.
Food & Drink: Below Average. The fact that I ate it probably raises it above a poor. The menu itself has sound ideas, but they were badly executed, let down the speed of the service (slow, then rapid) on board, and that some breakfast items had not been loaded.
Entertainment: Average. VS really need to sort out the instability issues with v:port. I don't see other airlines using the MAS 3000 platform having such bad issues. Something to do with the carrier-specific customisations and applications VS are running? Are they subjected to rigorous enough testing? Picture quality didn't seem as good as on the Airbus on the flight out. Games didn't work properly.
Cabin Crew: Average. They were nice enough, and I'm sure they performed all their duties, but they didn't execute the inflight service as well as I've seen it done before (e.g. the initial delay in serving the meal, and then rushing it), and didn't have an eye for detail. The FSM didn't make any effort to speak to Au pax or do any personal introductions, and didn't easily/readily make eye contact with pax when walking around the plane, if you ask me.
VS promise so much, especially with the Upper Class product, but find it hard to deliver it consistently. There's no getting away from the fact that when it's great, it's among the best, but it's too much of a lottery, whether your paying for the seat with money or miles.
Execution of the service is variable depending on the crew, and it seems that the crew themselves are frequently let down by the logistics behind supplying the aircraft, or are often embarrassed about things being missing or broken.
Mike
