This is a Trip Report from the Premium Economy cabin
Ground Staff
Food & Drink
Entertainment
Seat
Cabin Crew
September the 11th. We arrived at T3 for a prompt and pleasant check in. It felt quietish at the check-in, and I'd heard that many people avoid traveling on this date, and it was looking to be quiet so far.
Security was quick, and through to the shops. This area however looked reasonably busy. The Heathrow twitter feed was saying that it was busy with departing paralympians but unfortunately we didn't see any.
After a bit of shopping (to me this is starbucks, not the usual retail stuff) we took it easy and then our gate came up, so we went to gate 16. Once through the ticket check and in the waiting hall, I was trying to see which Aircraft we had, when I was called over by a man from G4S who excitedly informed me that it was a new plane. Wow! Indeed it was Golden Girl on her 17th flight
I told the rest of my group, they weren't so thrilled - they are all a bit nervous of flying. (i.e. if its new, the faults won't have been ironed out).
In a short time we boarded and passed through Upper saying Hi to some people we knew then found our seats, but in doing this I forgot to take in the new Bar area. Doh.
So having taken our seats it was great to find the new entertainment system was there for us
. Bonus #1. More of that later. The new seat belt was a bit stiff from the new padding, and on first attempt could not get it to buckle. But I worked it out. New seats were all great, it looks like the table always comes from the left no matter where you sit in PE, but I concede that I may be wrong here.
Anyway, the plane was about half full and push back occurred at 11:01, followed by a take off at 11:26
I'm not sure if its just me but that plane seemed a lot more bumpy on the ground and there were some loud noises, one like a stone hitting the outside. I guess its because its smaller.
After take off, a member of cabin crew came round and greeted me by name and thanked me for being a frequent flyer, and offered a complementary champagne (this is in addition to the pre flight sparkling wine that was offered). Bonus #2
. This was also offered to the rest of my group, who with the exception of one, declined. I'm only silver, so was quite impressed with this, and have never had this treatment before, not even when I last flew PE (2 weeks previous) and I didn't get it on the return journey. Not sure what prompted it, but it was appreciated. Amenity kits were distributed, and for the first time I got one of the new PE kits (Bonus #3)
Having collected rather too many of the old PE kits at home, it was great to get a new one, but the thrill is probably just in the difference Personally I like the new case, not the new pen. Its ok, it works and that, but you can loose the lid.
Its not as pink as this photo looks, the case is grey, the pen, toothbrush etc are purple.
Anyway time to play with the new entertainment system, Vera Touch, or JAM or whatever its called.
Both the big screen and the little screen are touch. Frankly I tended to just use the the big one. The big screen is a brighter and clearer. The choice and responsiveness of the system is great. You can bookmark programmes and films that you want to watch later, so you can flick through them all and mark the ones you want to come back to. The default order of films is based on customer rating. When you finish a film you are asked to rate it (i.e. like it or not) and when the flight it over it adds your votes and recalculates a "96 % like this" score.
The crew can put messages on the screen, and the standard ones (e.g. theres turbulence, take your seats) are dismissable by pushing an close button on the message.
The new map was good, just a lot more detail. And it would seem to have data of wreck sites, e.g. the Titanic site was marked as we flew nearby with a date., and other names popped up mid Atlantic that I'm sure are other wrecks.
You can connect your own equipment. There are two USB connectors. Not sure of the difference between the two but I think the right one is used for providing power (e.g. to an Ipod), the left will accept a media stick. I misunderstood what this could do, and on the journey back tried to get it to read a film of my data key. It can't , it will read Photos or Audio, or PDF files.
Anyway, other than the USB connector, there is a composite connector and an ipod connector (an odd one, looked more like a s-video connector to me) You choose what you are using by a switch between the two connectors. I think they said they sold the adapter on the plane for the ipod/pad
What seemed a little odd, on the pull out controller was that the icons on the light button and attendant button (underneath the 4 way pad on the left) seem to be 90 degrees at the wrong angle. (you could think the attendant button was actually a "bed" button), all the other buttons have their top the other way (the correct top when stowed). Another nice thing was that when pushed to the extreme tilt angles, the main screen now catches and stays put.
Back to more mundane things, there was a drinks run, then the seatbelt signs came on for turbulence. For quite a while we were flying with no turbulence, but then suddenly it hit. There was a fair amount of time of turbulence time on the flight. The crew were friendly and very efficient.
After Ice Cream and High tea, it was time to decend and we landed at 13:55 local time. On the way out, I looked at the bar. Nice! not sure it makes extra room, but I doubt I'll be lucky enough to find out first hand..
We left the plane got into immigration. This took a miserable hour and a half, not helped by all the immigration staff disappearing for 15 minutes!
So overall a good flight. It struck me that even though my last PE flight was only two weeks previous, it was rather like I had not flown VS for a couple of years, come back with everything new and improved, and impressive, but still very familiar.
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Bonus photo: I snapped a picture of the magazine explaining the new entertainment controls, including a drawing of the Economy handset controls.
