VS094 CUN-LGW 6 AUG 13 (Premium Economy)

This is a Trip Report from the Premium Economy cabin

Ground Staff

Food & Drink

Entertainment

Seat

Cabin Crew

Right return trip. Private transfer to the airport as I hate buses and waiting for people who are unable to keep to time.

Super quick check in at the dedicated PE desk, only one family ahead of us when we arrived.

Cancun airport is ok for a bit of last minute shopping and a snack so the 75 minutes or so that we had to wait went quickly. The year before last we used the lounge which I didn't think was worth the money.

The usual scrum at the boarding gate ensued, I have given up trying to fight my way through so we just let everyone carry on. You spend enough time sat on the plane as it is so I'm never desperate to board.

We had the window seats on row 19 A side and one the other side of the aisle. Now, in my humble opinion these are great seats! Guilt free recline and the first ones off. I congratulated my husbands seat mate on an excellent choice whilst we exchanged pleasantries. What I failed to add was that it was unlikely we would receive our first choice food wise, but I thought, hey, why put a downer on proceedings. Well, more to come on that later.

Anyway, excellent crew again, one particular lady was super. I emailed VS when we got home to tell them so.

IFE again was great, the gate to gate IFE is amazing! Really helps settle the kids down quickly and me as well to be honest!

Food was poor, menu same as last year:

Tabbouleh salad with tomatoes

Beef Stroganoff stew
Grilled chicken valentina
Vegetarian lasagne

Apple crumble with creme anglais - cold, cold, cold - why? Why? Why? Horrid.

Anyway, second TR which involved a food fight (not an actual fight with food, but nearly!). Hubbies seat partner was very VERY cross that he didn't get his first choice for dinner, he wanted the beef. The beef was all gone! Conversation was as follows:

PAX: but I want the beef
CC: I'm afraid the beef is all gone sir, I have chicken or vegetarian.
PAX: I want the beef.
CC: I'm afraid we've run out of the beef sir but I can get you the chicken if you'd like to try it?
PAX: I want the beef.
CC: I'm afraid we don't have any more beef, but I can get you something different.
PAX: I want the beef.
CC: there is no more beef left, would you like me to go and see if there are any beef meals left in economy?
PAX: No, go up front and get me an upper class meal.
CC: Ok, I'll go and see what there is left.

-------------------

CC returns with a chicken meal.

CC: I'm afraid all we have left is the chicken or vege, I bought you a chicken would you like to try it?
PAX: I don't like chicken, I'm not eating that.
CC: I can cook you a jacket potato but it will take around 45 minutes, would you like me to do that.
PAX: No.
CC: How about I get you another couple of starters and some more bread?
PAX: No.

------ awkward silence-------

PAX: Why have I paid all this money for there not to be any dinner for me? You should have enough for everyone.
CC: We haven't got enough room to carry a meal choice for each person, we only have so much oven space.
PAX: Well it's not good enough. I wanted the beef.

------------------

I've got to say, his behaviour was laughable, he was like a petulant child. How CC kept her cool was beyond me. Top marks to her for staying polite. Even his wife got up and walked off. Do people really think its a flying restaurant? Pathetic.

I couldn't contain my excitement for breakfast time

I was literally giddy that he was going to be stuck with a vege breakfast as there is no way on Gods green earth that there was going to be a full English left by row 19. To my abject disappointment they started service at the back and worked forward

Any way I didn't manage any sleep at all (why break the habit of a lifetime) but cheered myself up with the box of frosties I nicked off the breakfast buffet at the hotel the day before.

Apart from Mr Nasty across the way a good flight had by all.

Just a final word on the amenity kit - much cheapness from last year. VS are going to have to up their game on these leisure routes if they are going to beat Thomson's new Dreamliner premium club offering.

Many thanks for a great TR!

Mr Beef sounded like a lot of fun but like you said, congratulations to the CC for keeping her cool. If it is had been my other half, I would have walked off too!

I know it's annoying when you don't get your first option choice but still .....

It's annoying not having your chosen selection, but an all too often occurrence. The bloke sounded like a spoilt child

LOL, how funny .. he was clearly angling for a meal from Upper from the beginning

LOL, how funny .. he was clearly angling for a meal from Upper from the beginning

lol yeah exactly. whats that story lol some people. you want an upper class meal buy an upper class ticket. geez.

[honey lamb]

LOL, how funny .. he was clearly angling for a meal from Upper from the beginning

My thoughts too. I wonder if the CC deliberately didn't bring him a beef meal for that very reason!

Many years ago, on a Y flight from MCO to LGW, I was seated with my family in the centre of the Y cabin, and on the way out "all the beef had gone, so the choice was chicken or nothing".

The same thing had happened on the way out, and I politely suggested to the CC that maybe their computers needed updating to load more beef and a little less chicken; she laughed and said "just wait a moment".... and she came back with a very nice steak from UC for me.

So maybe I was lucky to be unlucky. But I can't see that happening nowadays...

For a flight with (say) 300 passengers, they don't need to load 300 beef, 300 chicken and 300 veggie. But if they do load (say) 140 beef, 140 chicken and 50 veggie (and so have 10% too many), it is not rocket science, or beyond the wit of "someone in logistics" to check after the flight; if all the beef have gone, then you increase the beef by 10, and reduce the others a little, and so on - I know there will always be variations, and we all need to minimise waste, but this is not that hard to get reasonably correct.

[Darren Wheeler]

10% extra? You'll be lucky if there is 1% extra.

As i have said before.You should be able to choose when completing on line check in.No moaning then.

As i have said before.You should be able to choose when completing on line check in.No moaning then.

I think there was a brief chat about this on another thread recently.
Not sure if this should be an a separate thread but...
I am all for this as I think it would be a good idea. I guess the problem would be what meals would be loaded for the people who didnt prebook?

You have another job for CC to work to the list of who asked for what.

Yes i agree more work for cc. But if you dont choose at on line check in, you get whats left. Meals could be allocated to seat number you requested and got at on line check in. simples.

@deep_south,

What you say to the end of your post about meal ratios, is exactly what happens at virgin. You are correct that it isn't rocket science and that's why virgin do it that way. Also like you say they review comments about when certain meals are running low and adjust them.

If you have a full premium cabin on the LGW Boeing, you might have 80 meals which is divided up into 30 beef, 30 chicken and 20 veg which gives you a sensible split. Should say 30 out of the first 45 -50 passengers want beef then the last 10-15 won't have it as a choice. But on tomorrow's flight the same thing will happen with the chicken and the veg. You'll never guess what people are going to want, so the fair split of meals as mentioned is what virgin do. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.

Hang on - I hope they don't load 30/30/20 meals for an 80 seater cabin - this will guarantee that at least some people have no chance of getting their "preferred" meal. And for some of those people, the choice then becomes "I can't (or won't) eat that...." which is (kind of) acceptable on a short haul fliht but not very good for long haul...

I agree we all need to minimise waste, but that is potentially crazy!

This will be a lengthy debate I fear! I comprehend the use of the word 'Economy' in the tag PE and you get a lovely seat etc. but when you are handed a posh PE menu card at the start of the flight, you make a mental selection 'that sounds nice today' only to discover because of where you are seated, actually there is little or no choice at the point of serving. It's the expectation of being able to choose that gets dashed. I am a meat eater but will happily eat or even choose vegetarian occasionally so I would be a fan of pre-selecting if the option was available, no wasted meals but acknowledge the CC workload increases...but they would have less disgrunteled passengers to deal with!!

You have another job for CC to work to the list of who asked for what.

Whatever happened to the customer is king and I am beind paid to provide the best service I can. Lots of crew of other airlines manage this task quite easily and as another poster alluded too a happy passenger means a less stressful cabin and consequently work environment. Looking forward to pre-booking my meals with American next week. Plus what's the difference for the crew in going through the Upper class cabin and writing down the passengers choice therefore creating a list or having the list pre-printed for them as the customer had chosen say a week earlier

No of course they don't. I put 80 as a rough estimate. PE on the gatwick fleet is our largest PE cabin with 66 seats, so I used 80 as an estimate if the cabin was full, with a split if 30,30,20.

Pre-choosing meals happens now on lots of flights, Come on VA keep up and please your paying customer, Give them the choice of meal before boarding etc.

Great TR; the dialogue made me laugh. I'm amazed at what crew have to put up with - if I'd been sitting next to him, I think I would have dissolved into laughter.

Great TR; the dialogue made me laugh. I'm amazed at what crew have to put up with - if I'd been sitting next to him, I think I would have dissolved into laughter.

Agreed!
Even in UC I couldn't get the crumble so I had the macha cheese cake which was awesome
I absolutely cannot stand spoilt beat behaviour
Reminds me of an abnoxious westerner who was getting annoyed at the worker in a fast food outlet in Tokyo who couldn't understand his English. I really felt sorry for the girl and wanted to tell the "gentleman" "you do realise that you are in Japan"....dufus lol how about learning how to simply say "please may I have this"

I thought the guy was joking to start with and I started sniggering. It was only when I realised he was serious that I just became incredulous. If we'd have been on the ground in a fast food outlet or somewhere I probably would have told him what I thought.

Nobody should have to put up with being spoken to in that way. Obviously written down you can't hear the venom and attitude he had and just how uncomfortable the whole thing was. He acted like a spoilt brat. I don't think it's acceptable to speak to anyone like that and certainly not when there is absolutely nothing she could do about it.

That's the main reason I emailed Crawley Towers to praise her, hopefully I counteracted any complaint that he may have made. She was a superb example of CC. I don't know how much these guys get paid and although they look fabulous ultimately they are there to drag you out of a burning fuselage or start your heart at 35,000 not to be balled at because you didn't get the dinner you wanted - truly, truly pathetic.

I thought the guy was joking to start with and I started sniggering. It was only when I realised he was serious that I just became incredulous. If we'd have been on the ground in a fast food outlet or somewhere I probably would have told him what I thought.

Nobody should have to put up with being spoken to in that way. Obviously written down you can't hear the venom and attitude he had and just how uncomfortable the whole thing was. He acted like a spoilt brat. I don't think it's acceptable to speak to anyone like that and certainly not when there is absolutely nothing she could do about it.

That's the main reason I emailed Crawley Towers to praise her, hopefully I counteracted any complaint that he may have made. She was a superb example of CC. I don't know how much these guys get paid and although they look fabulous ultimately they are there to drag you out of a burning fuselage or start your heart at 35,000 not to be balled at because you didn't get the dinner you wanted - truly, truly pathetic.

I certainly hope that the letter you sent was shown to her.
I totally agree with your action and I think I would do the same.
It's only a small amount of time and if he was that desperate for beef he more than likely could have got at hotel
I couldn't get my dessert of choice but by the time we landed I had forgotten all about it lol
Would like to add that I wouldn't yell at the CC just because I couldn't get it