This is a Trip Report from the Premium Economy cabin
Ground Staff
Food & Drink
Entertainment
Seat
Cabin Crew
1. I was on Uptown Girl, who was clean and tidy. The A333 PE cabin is great and very quiet - only at take off are you really troubled by engine noise. In the cruise the aircraft is really very soft on the ears. Brilliant. The IFE screens in PE are large.
2. I was amazed to rediscover how comfortable the PE seat is. To be completely frank, I think I was more comfortable on this flight than my flights in the old UC suite. This substantially reduces the desire to fly UC, especially for a gold-card holder.
3. This was my first non-UC flight as AU. I enjoyed the JFK clubhouse (though I still prefer the old one!); the chickpea curry was lovely:
and a quick stop in revivals was very welcome. The only glitch was at check-in when I was told I'd need to haul my case to the belt myself. I did not complain and a couple of minutes later the agent corrected herself, apologised, and removed the PE tags and attached UC ones instead. There was no recognition of status on the flight (but I'm not bothered about that).
4. I was really shocked by the degradation of the PE meal service. I had seen comments on v-flyer about this and had thought that people were rather overreacting, but I admit I was wrong. It was very disappointing: drinks served 15 minutes before food in tacky plastic tumblers (as per Y), and no refills when dinner was actually served - so I had no liquid with food. No water offered with dinner. No cheese and biscuits. No brandy/baileys. No fruit. Tea in a paper cup. I tried the salmon (OK), pasta (revolting, barely Y quality), and crumble (OK).
None of the dishes was finished, as I'd eaten in the lounge, but if it hadn't been for the meal in the clubhouse, I would have been very hungry. The full breakfast, on the other hand, was good - and a clear improvement.
All told, I think VS have made a mistake in paring down the main offering - it was always such a strong feature of the PE product. It's also worth noting that as I boarded from the lounge after the other passengers, I was not offered a paper or a welcome drink. (I don't mind, since I had plenty to read and was not drinking alcohol on the flight, but others may have felt differently.)
5. Crew were very good, very professional. Impressed again.
6. There is a new charity video (well, new to me) which was played abruptly 40 minutes before landing! Then we had tedious pop music blaring for the rest of the flight. Why is this necessary, especially on a red-eye? It is so naff.
7. In the clubhouse PE passengers were asked to approach the desk. We were told that a number of seats were broken and I was offered miles to transfer to BA instead! I declined, purely on the basis that it would delay me by at least an hour or two.
8. The new PE amenity kit is virtually identical to the UC one, except no iPad case on this inbound leg and no tissues. Otherwise, the product looks very similar. The toothpaste is different and maybe the earplugs are (not sure). Either way, you are not getting much more for your money in UC.
So there we are - a very comfortable flight and one which leaves me perfectly happy to turn right into PE, provided that I've eaten a decent meal first. I didn't sleep at all, but I didn't try to - and on the short East Coast hops it's not much of a loss, because you only get about 4 hours max in any case. Another reason to question the value of UC, I fear...
