This is a Trip Report from the Upper Class cabin
Ground Staff
Food & Drink
Entertainment
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Cabin Crew
So excuses out of the way and here goes a dual TR, covering our very first VA UC experience, for reference we are both long time users of VA and have flown many trans- atlantic crossings in PE and even …….E. We have also flown the BA equivalent to PE and the old BMI business class, is it just me or when BA took over BMI should they not have combined the letters and called it BAMBI, or would that made it a little deer to fly…… boom tisch.
It was as you may say a game of two halves as this trip and experience with VA were two very contrasting experiences.
It all began at EDI on Saturday 24th August with a very uneventful and timely flight down to LHR on Little Red. Only notable point was the huge choccie cookie that I got with my coffee, it was about the size of bin lid (pre wheelie bin days) and left me almost in some sort of chocolate haze. We landed bang on time and left the plane in both hopped up on choccie. The bus from T3 to T1 was there and left sharply and we were at the lounge entrance in double quick time.
As this was our first lounge experience we were greeted by a very nice concierge who offered us a tour, which we declined politely and were off into the lounge. We had around an hour 45 mins to kill, so we went for a wander around and plumped for a couple of Eames chairs (I had a nice photo of this of course….on the phone), the huge burger and a couple of drinkies. It was all a very pleasant experience and we set off for the gate both relaxed and ready to go.
We boarded Molly with the other 241 pax. We of course tried to act as if we flew UC all of the time and wafted left at the door and into the UC cabin, we then cracked and got all excited and started snapping photos of everything. We were joined by another three couples who were equally as excited. We even ended up with a very nice CC snapping us all at the bar. Our own CC came and introduced herself to each couple in our row, she was very chatty and provided an excellent first impression of the service to come. Champers for the wife and an orange for me, we pushed back not long later and off we went bang on time, with a flying time of 9:29 to Vancouver.
The Vera system was switched on, oh dear lord an awful picture and films on a loop, even before the entertainment reel started proper a cc asked if we would like to borrow a tablet for the flight as in her words the ‘Vera system is past it and they are trialling using tablets in UC’. We were both given a nice shiny Galaxy Note with around 20 recent films loaded, a power lead and a flimsy cheap looking and sounding pair of in-ear buds. Galaxy was a nice touch though.
I watched Looper and had my brain fried in the first 20 mins, need to look that up on IMDB, to see what that was all about, I get the impression it was something to do with Bruce Willis and the stages of his hair growth.
Then the service started we had summer broth, chicken breast in tarragon sauce with peas, chorizo and potatoes, custard and strawberry tart for me and a choccie pud for the other half, washed down with a nice vintage white followed by cheese and a very nice glass of port or two. The wife then got into her ninja suit, cue more laughter and photos by the first timers and lots of comments about wearing the same thing, it was like when you go bowling and all compare shoes. The beds were made up by some and the cabin settled down, at about two hours to land we were all served a very nice afternoon tea, of course who doesn’t want to eat a scone, jam and cream at the UK equivalent of 11:00pm. The wife made a very good suggestion, why don’t they serve the afternoon tea when you are first airborne at around 4:30 and the dinner a bit later, one for a suggestion to VA me thinks.
During the tea one of the crew came round and was wearing the new uniform, quite a fancy blouse and a high collared jacket, the wife informs me it is Westwood. Our new uniform wearing CC She was very helpful and let me take a snap of her and one of her colleagues in the current uniform standing next to each other (yip you guessed it lost on the phone).
We landed slightly ahead of time and were at the gate by 1:10 and off into Canada, after being thanked nicely at the door and wished a great holiday by the CC.
All in all a very pleasant first UC experience for us both, which convinced us that this is the only way to fly.
Not to bore you but the two weeks on holiday went something like this, Vancover – very nice- seaplanes-boats-nice food, Seattle-90 mins at the border-space needle-whale watching-lost phone, Whistler – 1 min at the border -healthy air- great scenery, Vancouver- homeward bound.
The return then went something like this:
So we got to YVR with around 90 mins to kill before we boarded for the flight to LHR, the Premiere lounge at YVR is a weird one, with certain sections only allowing certain airlines in, we sat in a quiet corner and awaited the board call. By the way YVR is a hoot at that time of night, 8:30 and everything was closed bar the duty free.
We wandered to the gate and noticed it was our old friend Molly for the return leg as well. We got to the door and it was as if VA had been taken over, the CC at the door looked at our cards and just pointed to the left, no welcome on board or anything like that. We found our seats and the UC CC seemed to be having a bit of a tussle around who had what seats. A poor lady had been upgraded from PE and was seated with her champers, smiling and saying that this was lovely, when one of the CC came up and said a mistake had been made and could she please follow her back to PE. It was like the boat being wheeled out on Bullseye, I was just waiting for Jim Bowen to pop up and say ‘Look what you could have won’.
Our CC began introducing herself down the row, but seemed to get bored after two and just gave up, so I only realised after about two hours what her name was. We pushed back and left on time and were in the air very quickly, our borderline aggressive CC asked if wanted a meal or not, we both declined and asked for sleep suits, she then proceeded to ask everyone else, she seemed to get more and more aggressive as a lot of the Canadian types had no clue what a sleep suit was. She just sighed a lot and carried on asking about sleep suits.
The tablet man came round again and asked everyone in turn, again he seemed a bit peeved that he was having to explain why you would need a tablet. In a moment of brilliance one of the Canadian passengers asked first why do you not just improve your entertainment system if it does not work properly and then asked why he was signing them out, to which he replied ‘in case someone steals one’ . Which of course was like implying to this slightly elderly Canadian lady that she was like to pilfer one of the VA tablets.
Post the service we both donned our sleep suits and settled down for a kip, which of course was virtually impossible as the CC kept banging and crashing around in the galley and cupboards for the next 4 hours plus. The lights came up at around 2 hours to go and we had a smile at the bleary eyed passengers, with ninja suits and hair like Nigel Kennedy emerging from their pods.
Our erstwhile CC appeared at the foot of my bed and asked would I like breakfast, to which I replied yes please, she rolled her eyes and snapped back well what exactly would you want. Of course in my sleep weary state I was struggling to recall the exact contents of the menu I had read 7 hours earlier, she huffed and puffed and eventually I just blurted out coffee. She seemed to be taking the same approach with each passenger in turn, instead of course of reminding everyone what the blumming breakfast menu was. One of the younger Canadian passengers asked for fruit and yoghurt, which when it came she tasted it and said this is sweetened yoghurt and was there any other, our lovely CC just said that was all they had and anyway it was the Canadian catering crew that had loaded it. In other words her implication was as it was a Canadian catering crew it is virtually your fault that the yoghurt is wrong.
Breakfast was cleared with a tone and wording of a matron in a school, I was asked to pass my empty glass, no please thank you or anything like that. My favourite bit of the trip and perfect example of the service that had been provided then ensued, as we were prepping for the landing, the usual rush to brush teeth and stuff began, with the toilets being overused, this went on for around 15 mins. Then our CC struck again, one of the Canadian ladies had queued for the loo for a while and eventually made it in, which then led to her shouting down the full length of the cabin to one of the other CC asking if and I quote ‘Is that woman still in the toilet, someone will need to get her out’, nice touch, she then popped open the door and hussled a slightly bemused looking lady back to her seat, made her stand at the foot of the bed like a naughty schoolchild when our CC huffed and puffed and collapsed her bed.
We landed on time and proceed to get ready for the off, an announcement came over that all UC pax would be getting off at door 1, thanks for that, unless of course you are a regular traveller or work in the airline industry how do you know where door 1 is, so cue confused faces as people looked around looking for a large sign saying door 1 this way. We made it to the door and the CC seemed engaged deep in conversation, so we all got off to the sound of them chatting, not a word of thanks or a goodbye was heard….not really an UC experience.
We then spent the next 3 hours in the Serviceair lounge at T1, which felt longer than the previous two weeks, VA need to get something sorted with the returning flights when the Revivals Lounge is closed. Then we were back on Little Red to EDI, I must say that the crew on that flight restored our faith in VA as they were great, chatty, polite and everything you expect from VA.
So apologies for the length of this and also a plea, if you are ever in Nordstrom in Seattle and see a black iPhone lying looking forlorn, say hello from me and assure it that even though it has been replaced I will always love it.
Last edited by Geordietone on 13 Sep 2013, 13:46, edited 2 times in total.
