Upper Class VS23 / VS24 - A350 or 787?

Hello everyone,

My wife, mother-in-law and myself have booked return upper class flights from LHR -> LAX in December this year.

We are flying out on VS23 and returning on VS24. I haven’t flown on the A350 yet (but I have flown the 747 / 787 UC before) so I was very excited to see that both flights are advertised as using the A350-1000.

From what I have read online, this route is very susceptible to the dreaded A350 -> 787 swap, which would be fairly upsetting for me as we have saved up for a long time to afford these flights and I’ve longed to fly UC in the A350 since they came out.

I have checked the history of both these flights on flightradar24, and I’m really dismayed to see that the 787 has been used for both flights every day for the last 7 days!!

It seems fairly certain that Virgin are advertising this route as the A350 but very rarely actually use it, instead opting for the 787.

We have booked a flex ticket, so I’m considering cancelling and saving the £7,000 over premium economy because of the risk of getting the 787.

I was hoping that you knowledgeable people would be kind enough to provide your expertise as to whether I’m actually likely to end up in an A350. I know that no one knows for sure and there is no guarantee of any plane (or even a seat), I’m just completely thrown looking at the flight history and seeing that the A350 hasn’t been used at all in the last week?

I don’t want to come across as ungrateful as we are of course fortunate to be able to save up and afford the ticket in the first place, but it would be a real bummer not to fly in the A350.

Thank you in advance.

Hi there!

I can understand your concerns regarding B787. Honestly not a bad seat for the inbound as you just sleep and is comfortable ( well for UC anyway).

However; no need to panic.

During summer season it’s always 2x A350, 1x 787 on the LHR-LAX route. They have never* flown 3xA350 on this route during summer. (* not to my knowledge).

So it seems the vs7 & vs141 are operating the A350, and Vs23 is B787 this summer season.

Winter season is normally 2xA350 (as the 3rd daily flight is dropped for winter season).

So whereas summer it’s vs7/8, vs141/142 and vs23/24, winter schedule is only vs7/8 and vs23/24. So the 2xA350 they use during summer schedule will be used on winter schedule.

It’s the same for most routes e.g Miami, right now for summer is 1xA339 and 1xB787, when winter schedule starts its 1xA339 and 1xA339/A333.

Aircraft swaps can happen at late notice, even on the day itself due to operations and maintenance.

To be quite honest, LAX is mostly stable with the A350, just like ATL where it’s always A350 (unless ops/maintenance issues).

I had originally SFO booked, but that changed from A350 to B787 so I changed my flight to LAX on the Vs7. At that point, the points upgrade price (as I booked prem cash ticket, was only a few thousand more points per person). I changed solely as the fact they swapped the entire SFO route in winter from A350 to B787 and it wasn’t just an odd flight they changed.
It is the other routes (MCO, BOS, TPA, even JFK) where aircraft are swapped the most last minute.

I would leave the booking as is or change to vs7/8. But let’s face it, if you change the booking, you’d also kick yourself if the new flight would change to B787 and original flight stayed A350.

Wow, thank you - that is super helpful and somewhat reassuring

Just out of interest - do you know what date the third flight is removed and they move to two flights? I can then start checking to make sure they’re flying the A350 on VS23/24.

Thanks again.

No problem at all!

Sunday 12th October is the last day of 3x daily LAX flights.
From then until 25 th October vs23 is B787 (still classed as summer schedule).

From 26th October the Winter schedule starts and vs23 moves to A350.