Change of aircraft and flight time, why ??

Booked a honeymoon to dubai and a virgin holiday cruise to boot.

What I am wondering is that on the return flight which was due to leave dubai at 1000hours local time, it is now 1055hours, why? Not an issue as gives me the extra hour to look at planes but just wondering....

Secondly and this annoys me is why have they changed the aircraft from an A340-600 to a A340-300, which is an older aircraft meaning older IFE, seats etc on a route which I consider to be one of there more premium routes??? Knowing they are not upgrading the cabins like the gatwick/Manchester aircraft I could handle with the 340-600 but the 340-300 is such a let down. n(

Let's hope the honeymoon goes more smoothly y)

[Neil]

Welcome to the site.

The time change will be part of the much bigger schedule change that VS seems to make every year. A number of flights have had their flights changed, and one of the big reasons this year is to try and make connections to the soon to be launched internal UK flights as sensible as possible with as many of their international flights.

Regarding the a/c change, unfortunately it is just one of those things. Whilst you are correct that 3 out of the 4 a/c have the VERA Reel IFE, one does have VERA on demand like the A346, so you might get lucky. But the seats and the rest of the cabin and service you receive will be exactly the same as on an A346. In fact only the LHR based A330 a/c, which have the new UCS on them, are any different to what the whole fleet have including MAN/LGW, so same Y and PE across the fleet.

Neil

Dubai now scheduled on a 340-300 for the summer
Think the departure time is now later as at the moment the 2 hour turnaround (lands at 08:00 departs at 10:00) is just too tight and unrealistic and difficult to achieve Plus as Neil said the slots at LHR have been played around with to accommodate the new domestic services
True the ife is older on 3 of the 4 340-300s but you get given Samsung tablet pcs in upper and premium so you still have on demand entertainment