VS012 BOS-LHR 30 Mar 09 (PE)
Posted: 31 Mar 2009, 12:52This is a Trip Report from the Premium Economy cabin
Ground Staff
Food & Drink
Entertainment
Seat
Cabin Crew
After a great 5 days in Warner, NH we headed down to Boston, arriving to an empty checkin at 4pm, to find both the pairs of seats in row 18 gone, so we selected 2 in the middle 3.
Security was pretty painless, although a little slow considering there were no queues. This was the first time in the new Clubhouse, as previous trips to Boston were in the days of the shared lounge. It's a nice little respite from the busy airport, however, I am not keen on the no Menu thing.
We waited until the second annoucement for boarding at 7pm for the 7.40pm flight, and walked straight on.[y]
Loads were light in Economy and probably half to two thirds full for Upper, there were 7 spare seats in PE. Total passengers were 138.
We pushed back 8 minutes early, and took the long taxi to the runway. With a flight time of 6 hours and 16 minutes I was hoping for an early landing into Heathrow.
The food was served almost immediately, although the Menu's were wrong, no Scollaps, but Beef and Rice instead. I would have gone with the Chicken, but it had a lot of sweetcorn which I really dislike. I went for the beef and regretted it, it was terrible, chewy and tasteless.
As the plane did not have V-Port, I wanted to watch The day the Earth stood still, but it had a glitch every minute or so, and as I wanted some sleep I figured I'll just sleep through it.
Was woken at 6am by breakfast, and was offered a hot cookie and a Fruit loaf or Cereal bar, said I'd like all of them, which was no problem.
We had to circle for a few minutes, and then landed at 7:25. Where we waited for 10 minutes for a stand.
Both IRIS machines were working, however, we both had issues with them. For me, it would click and take the picture, and then do nothing. No instruction or opening of the door. In the end it did 3 of these and then let me through.
For my wife, it did the same but then kicked her out, so I got her to clear immigration with the guy sitting next to the machines. From what I saw both machines were doing something similar to passengers before and after us.
We headed down to belt 10, where a load of crew were waiting, they were not in uniform, but their bags came off first, while we had to wait a good 15 to 20 minutes for any bags to come off. At checkin I was told the flight was going to be a 747, but was switched at the last minute, which did n't really make sense to me, as our seat selection a few weeks back was an Airbus config, as well as online check in on Sunday night. Also, a 747 flight crew would have been needed, so perhaps thats who was waiting at the luggage belt.
The bags eventually came, and we headed back to our car via the Parking Express shuttle.
Before leaving the UK, I did ask the Virgin Premier team, to put a not e on the booking that it was my wife's 40th birthday. I was not expecting an upgrade, nor did I ask, but a glass of champagne would have been a nice touch.
Not one Virgin employee read or even acknowledged this, and I was very disappointed at this. Hotels do this so much better.
My 40th is comming up soon, and I was thinking of booking Chicago, but I'm having second thoughts.
Summary
Check in was OK
Clubhouse was Good
Food on board - Terrible
IFE - The Day the Earth Stood Still - Poor Quality / Interference
Service on board - Very Good
Special Birthday Notice on Booking - Not read or acknowledged[n]