This is a Trip Report from the Upper Class cabin
Ground Staff
Food & Drink
Entertainment
Seat
Cabin Crew
Spent the night before the flight at the Heathrow Premier Inn, which for £29 you could not fault. Maybe I have yet to be unlucky, but I have never had a bad nights sleep at a Premier Inn & this was no exception. (Have had more than a few bad nights sleep in hotels that cost an awful lot more then Premier Inns).
Passed on breakfast at the Premier Inn (Clubhouse can take care of that!) and got the Hoppa bus to LHR. Arrived at about 10am and the Virgin check-in area in T3 was deserted. Straight up to the UC desk and proper boarding passes were issued. Up in the lift, through the private security channel, through the shopping mall that is T3 and onto the Clubhouse. The Clubhouse was surprisingly quiet (as I mentioned in my “Hello from the LHR Clubhouse” post) as the Miami and LA flight were just being called as we arrived. Took up residence behind the bar near the windows looking out onto the gates.
Breakfast was ordered and consumed. We were good at this point and stayed off the drink. After we’d had breakfast, we got the pleasure of an off-duty VS staff member making their presence known. [Name omitted] arrived in the Clubhouse and started greeting staff by name, hugging / kissing them and then took up residence with her party below the Grey Goose loft. Most of the Clubhouse staff seemed to pass through the area under the loft during the next half hour or so. I am 99% certain this person was not a Z-lister as we later saw her emerging from the Clubhouse kitchen – I somehow doubt you’d get in there unless you were staff (probably Clubhouse staff).
By now it was half eleven-ish and the will power was lacking, so cheese on toast and champagne was in order – very nice it was too. After we’d had that the “Concierge” type lady was doing the rounds – she was clearly a salesperson for Virgin Money / MBNA, but we got talking to her. Seems they have a special offer on in the Clubhouse – sign up for the VS Black Amex card in the Clubhouse and you get 30,000 bonus FC miles. So 30K miles for the annual fee of the Black Amex card – that is a saving of about £200 compared to buying the miles. We both have the white Amex cards, but signed up for the Black cards – so this trip will net us close on 80K miles. Not bad.
Wandered down to gate 18 where Mustang Sally was waiting. Two airbridges in use so boarded via L1 and turned left to take up residence in 16A/K. Pre-flight drinks were promptly offered & accepted… I do prefer the old champagne glasses though. Amenity kits are still the old ones. Had the “pleasure” of the pax in 17K changing into a sleep-suit at his seat before takeoff
(thankfully he kept his boxer shorts on, but took everything else off). Flight time is to be 7h4m. Pushed back about half an hour late and had a manual safety demo, which covered the bare minimum (even a Ryanair safety demo covers more). No mention in the demo that smoking is prohibited (that came in the post-takeoff announcement). Unsure why the safety demo was manual, as V-Port is working fine now we are airbourne. 342 pax and 18 crew onboard (assume the 18 crew must include the flight-deck). On the subject of the flight-deck – not a word from them either before takeoff or afterwards. Unusual.
Once the seatbelt sign pinged, the service flow started. Greeted by name by the crew member when they took drinks orders & the drinks were promptly delivered. Lunch orders taken – think they were already running short on steaks by the time they got to row 16, as everyone infront had ordered steak – they heavily pushed the chicken & tortelloni options, but let us choose steak. Lunch service has started & is going well – no idea what the amuse-bouche is, but it looks like it has come out of the bottom of a budgies cage, so gave that a miss. The beetroot cured salmon was very nice, but the steak was crap. The steak was tender, but riddled with fat & the carrots and potato were very undercooked. Passed on desert and awaited the arrival of the cheese trolley – the cheese was very nice.
After lunch settled down to watch a film and snooze a little. Paid the bar a visit, but it was deserted, so took the drinks back to our seats. Had the usual mid-flight ice cream run and about 2 hours before landing the afternoon tea service came round. I like the idea of serving afternoon tea off the trolley, but it does not half slow the service down. The individual cake stands are pretty flimsy too (I do appreciate the fact they have to pack-flat to save space). The afternoon tea was very nice and filled a gap to tide us over until we got to Manhattan.
As the cabin was being secured for landing, we finally heard from the flight deck for the first time. It is also noteworthy that we did not see the FSM at all during the flight. We heard her on the PA and would have noticed if she had been present in the UC cabin as she had a notable Irish accent.
Had an uneventful landing and pretty slow taxi to T4. Was a bit concerned about the immigration queues as we could see an Etihad plane going in ahead of us at T4. Luckily, the Etihad took a remote stand so we beat their pax to immigration. Interestingly, when we got off the plane and out of the airbridge there were 4 or 5 Immigration / NYPD (unsure which, but suspect the former) stopping everyone and checking passports before letting you walk on to the immigration hall. Fears about the immigration queues were unfounded – we were through in under 10mins. 15mins after leaving the aircraft we were in the taxi queue (which took about 20mins). The taxi driver knew the route to take to avoid the traffic, as 2 hours after landing we had checked into our hotel, showered and were wandering round lower Manhattan, eating Pizza and then handling some very well polished bulls b#llocks. It’s hot and muggy in NYC, but I do like the place.
So to summarize, all in all a good flight. The Clubhouse was brilliant as always (look forward to the new JFK one on Sunday!) The cabin & suites were in pretty good nick – everything worked as it should. The crew & service were good too – only slight negative was the absence of the FSM (a quick pass through the cabin / hello to the pax costs nothing). Also odd was the lack of communication from the flight deck until we were on approach to JFK. That said, the flight ticked all the boxes and you got the UC experience you expected.
