US Airlines First and Envoy

Has anyone flown recently with US Airlines in their Envoy Transatlantic or First(in the US)?

Prices for next year are coming much much cheaper than VA Upper and I was wondering if anyone has any experience with them and with US in general. Thanks.

when are you looking at ? i checked yesterday and they were over 4000 dollars for Feb.........both my kids flew economy with them in the past few months and raved about them , said Envoy looked very nice

Have flown with them in economy.. the service is not as great as VS, or dare I say it.. BA, but def a good one for a US carrier.

I have had a wander around the Envoy cabin, looked ok.. lots of business travellers working away and looked a little more sociable than some of the VS UC cabins.

Food service was fair, plane food is plane food and sods law whenever you like something there is never enough for seconds n(

There were plenty of drink runs made, although like VS economy pax could wander along to the galley if they needed anything.

For the interUS flights with US Airways the coach section of the planes is a little cattle like, but depending on how long the flight is nothing too strenuous to endure. Whereabouts are you looking to go? 8D

Our plans a fairly flexible at the moment but Manchester to Orlando and back from San Francisco or elsewhere on the West coast depending on what we decide to do. First/Envoy is £1000 or more cheaper than VA Upper prices. The internal part of the flight is in First as they don't have Envoy there.

We are looking at end of April returning the end of May/beginning of June.

I've flown with US in Envoy from Manchester to PHL and onto destinations in the US in First many times.

The Envoy cabins have been recently updated, I think all aircraft have been updated now. Full flat recline in 1+2+1 herringbone but at less of an angle than UC so I think more space to the suite than in UC, it certainly feels more spacious. Entertainment system is good, food as good as VS and I personally sleep better than in VS UC which always seems to turn into a sauna half way through the flight for me. The styling is not as funky as VS and the lounges don't compare to CH but I would still recommend Envoy.

However once you get to PHL, you've got a good 45 mins walking to clear immigration and transfer to the internal flights terminal. If you check bags, you will need to collect it and cart it through to the internal terminal yourself where you check it again. There are lounges in some of the internal terminals but they are nothing special. For me PHL is a tired old airport and is not a nice experience.

Check what aircraft your internal flight is but either way, as will all US airlines, don't expect internal First to be anything like intercontinental Business/First. At best, on a 7?7 it's a wide leather seat but no significant legroom or recline. Food/drink is FOC but still served out of a box/wrapper as in Economy and there's no entertainment system. If you're on one of the smaller aircraft types, you'll just get to sit at the front in the same seat as everyone else.

It suits me if I have only a short internal flight and hand baggage, but when going to central or west coast US I'd definately prefer a direct flight or a change at LAX/SFO even if it was more expensive or not with a VS partner.

Thank you for that helpful post. It sounds like it might be worth trying them then though I wouldn't look forward to Philly airport. The schedule gives 1 hour 20 minutes change over on the return from SF but on the way out it doesn't say, just mentions 1 stop so no idea how much time they would be giving us.

It also might be an idea to just book economy for the internal legs if first is nothing special.

We have always said we wouldn't do indirect flights that changed in the US after a couple of experiences but with the costs of Virgin now it has made us re-think.

The lounge in Philly was nice , Envoy a couple of years ago was ok , but not as good as VA used to be

You know, in all our Virgin UC travels we have never had the chance to spend time in a Virgin Clubhouse. It has always been Manchester Escape Lounge or the Delta Lounge in Orlando and one time I think it was the Air New Zealand Lounge in LA. I still feel slightly peeved about that but that is how it is so... :w At least the Escape Lounge was better than being down in the terminal but not sure if that is the same now at Manchester as the terminal has improved.

US Envoy is very similar to the Cathay biz seat, and is probably the best US-based biz seat out there right now, at least until AA make the new version of it widely available on its fleet.

The biggest issue I have with US is you're forced to connect through PHL or Charlotte, which cuts the length of a TATL flight considerably (essentially breaks the trip in half from the West Coast), especially annoying when flying overnight as you lose a lot of potential sleep time when you compare with flights over 4500 miles.

F is standard US F, so seats like a slightly nicer PE VS seat, but not by much; flights over 2000 miles get proper meal service (so SF-PHL would get a proper meal) short flights on US get somewhat funky service (would probably not be an issue on short connections from PHL or CLT to Florida, you will have had two meals on MAN-PHL and will just want to sleep). US is inhabiting this twilight zone between a low cost and a full service international airline, and seems to be happy doing so. I've mostly used them on east coast shuttle flights as they have good presence in the BOS-NY-PHL-DCA space, and their very strong presence in both LGA and DCA makes them ideal for jetting about into NY and DC.

1-stop flights are also known as direct flights, and connections are usually timed pretty well; if you check flight status for the flight number it will usually show you the two separate flights and you can see the detailed timings, or just do a search for MAN-PHL, then PHL-MCO to see the details of the individual flights. I'm going to guess the connection time is going to be in the order of two hours. More like 45mins to 1:30 on the return from SF. Lounges in PHL aren't likely to be much of a factor as a result, you won't have much time to spend there.

Thank you MarkedMan for all the helpful information.