VS250 LHR-PVG 4 AUG 11 (Premium Economy)

This is a Trip Report from the Premium Economy cabin

Ground Staff

Food & Drink

Entertainment

Seat

Cabin Crew

Edited to add a couple of photos

My travels to China probably differ from most trip reports as I'm off to do an intensive language immersion course staying with my non-English speaking father in law.

I managed to book this trip using a mileage reward sale and a Credit Card PE upgrade making the trip a bit of a bargain when the fare prices looked scarily high. This being the first time I've ever left the UK during school holidays I wasn't ready for that!

Anyway, a few days before travel I got a courtesy phonecall from VS. It was in the most part useless and there was no attempt to sell me anything. I did enquire about the price of UC and was told it was a £918 upgrade one-way.

Arriving at LHR I was unprepared for the large queues, even with SQ having left zone A and VS spreading out. I guess this was another school holiday thing. The PE desks were only half manned and their queues were longer than Y which was fully manned so I queued for a Y desk which took around 15 minutes. Having dropped my case I went to UC sales to see if there was any chance of a miles upgrade and was told no due to the Amex upgrade. I was again offered the £918 upgrade so politely declined.

Security was deserted and I was soon ensconsed in the Servisair lounge courtesy of Priorty Pass. In the corridor to this lounge you first come across the new No.1 lounge which looked almost ready to open - a shame it wasn't a week earlier. The Servisair lounge was fine and I was pleasently surprised by how quiet, friendly and cool (great air con) it was. This is obviously an old BA lounge given the number of BA asset tags in evidence. The only negative part was the toilets which weren't great and there was a floater

The gate came up around an hour before scheduled departure and I headed down to Gate 19. I hate the way you have to give way to arriving passengers here and you end up in a massive crowd. Not helped by the corridor being swelteringly hot with air con innefectual. These gates do however have excellent set up for priority lanes and I gained access to the departure lounge instantly bypassing the very long queue down the corridor.

Priority boarding was announced just as I entered and I went straight onto the plane with no queue in the tunnel either. The seat appeared clean and in working order though I did have to de-grease one of the windows. The carpet could also have been cleaned better - the gap between the seat in front and the window being where debris had accumulated. Welcome drinks took around 20 minutes to be served and yes they were calling it champagne. It was noteable that it was to be only 1 drink per person, as new arrivals were offered and their already seated neighbours who had finished bypassed.

Push back and take-off was on time (G-VFIZ and 277+3 announced) and luke-warm towels offered. V-Port was put on quickly (and worked fine and responsively the whole flight) and pre-dinner drink orders taken - dissapointingly my headset socket was faulty and I had to hold the adaptor almost out to get it to work. Dinner (according to the menu) was a choice of vegetable ravioli, beef hotpot with potatoes and sweet and source chicken with rice. When it came around however it quickly became clear that this was not to be - the chinese food hadn't been loaded and it was chicken with potatoes. Cue a massive argument from some of the Chinese passengers, we ended up with 5 CC including the FSM having to calm the situation.

I chose the beef and finished absolutely everything, the whole meal was nice (except the dry and falling apart bread roll) though missing any steel cutlery - I marked the food down in respect of the chinese passengers as it really isn't acceptable.

With lights out I tried to get some sleep but couldn't - that's just me and planes, I don't think I can sleep unless I'm lying down.

Mid-flight some Earl Grey (why?) ice cream was handed out. No other food but perhaps I did doze for short intervals but it was soon time to get up for breakfast. This was served with lights still off. The choices were full english or chinese congee. Since I usually choose food from the origin I had the full english which despite looking terrible, was pretty nice - the quanity of tea poured was miserly and no seconds either. The Chinese Congee turned out to be minced beef with potato (ooops!) but thankfully I think the Chinese couldn't be arsed this time to kick off.

Before landing I got a voucher for 4000 miles to say sorry for the IFE issues. We had a very long and rough approach holding through big clouds before landing. Once off the plane the terminal was literally deserted and we were through in no time. Despite this, the luggage was already appearing so from plane door to terminal exist took around 20 mins.

All in all an OK flight, nothing particularly bad for me but nothing spectacular either. This CC seemed particularly poor at picking up glasses during the flight and rubbish at the end of the flight. The plane got me there on time so no complaints.

An ok flight then, but no VS sparkle (apart from the welcome drinks, that is:D)

Many thanks for the TR - would be interested to know your seat on G-VFIZ as I travelled on this aircraft in November 2010 and had a faulty socket just like you explained and was assured it would be logged - how bizzare would be if the issue has still not sorted or reoccurred again!!

The service seems rather disappointing which on a long flight is a very poor do and not to have the correct food loaded is just another nail in the LSG Sky Chefs coffin

Thanks for sharing your experience.

Jon

Thanks for the TR, I did chuckle a little when I read it took 5 crew to calm a situation over meal choices!

Shame about the IFE, pleased to see the crew giving compensation inflight.

Many thanks for the TR - would be interested to know your seat on G-VFIZ as I travelled on this aircraft in November 2010 and had a faulty socket just like you explained and was assured it would be logged - how bizzare would be if the issue has still not sorted or reoccurred again!!

cheers HF. It was 21K. The CC member was extremley apologetic and did offer a DVD player. I couldn't be bothered with that as actually it wasn't horrendous holding the adaptor - you get your arm in a comfortable position and then don't move. He did also make a point to sy he had written it up in the log.

Thanks for the TR, I did chuckle a little when I read it took 5 crew to calm a situation over meal choices!.

perhaps I was being a little over dramatic! It was to do with translation rather than quantities, as from what I could tell all the senior CC were English so needed some help with the negotiations.

cheers HF. It was 21K. The CC member was extremley apologetic and did offer a DVD player. I couldn't be bothered with that as actually it wasn't horrendous holding the adaptor - you get your arm in a comfortable position and then don't move. He did also make a point to sy he had written it up in the log.

I was in 19D so thankfully not the same seat but pleased they offered you an option to overcome the problem and an uplift of some miles.

Thank you for the TR, shame about the little faults.

cheers HF. It was 21K. The CC member was extremley apologetic and did offer a DVD player. I couldn't be bothered with that as actually it wasn't horrendous holding the adaptor - you get your arm in a comfortable position and then don't move. He did also make a point to sy he had written it up in the log.

I was in 19D so thankfully not the same seat but pleased they offered you an option to overcome the problem and an uplift of some miles.

Well I was on G-VSHY on Sunday and had the problem again in 20G Now either we're unlucky or I suggest it's time to service the adaptor units.

[buns]

McMaddog

Thanks for an interesting TR and awe of making use of the the Amex voucher

As others have already said, a "so-so" flight is not a benchmark that VS should be aiming at. Yes, I appreciate this is a tough climate, but the spark needs to be there to get repeat business

buns