VS075 MAN-MCO 2 MAY 15 (Upper Class)
Posted: 03 May 2015, 03:36This is a Trip Report from the Upper Class cabin
Ground Staff
Food & Drink
Entertainment
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Back to our hotel – a Premier Inn near the airport. As always, I had a good nights sleep - have always found Premier Inn’s hard to fault for the price you pay. Have had some bad nights sleep in hotels costing many times the price.
Manchester Airport certainly comes to life at around 5:30am, as we heard the regular rumble of departing aircraft climbing out. Given that we were in “holiday mood” there was no way further sleep was forthcoming.
Got a taxi to the airport and walked straight up to the empty Upper Class desk (queue for Economy & Premium Economy was quite big). Bags taken off us, boarding passes issued & stickered for priority lane access at security.
There was a short wait at security, but through in under 5mins. Picked up a bit of duty free to “make the evenings in Orlando on the balcony more enjoyable” – OK, a bottle of gin. Ruby Tuesday is at the gate being prepped for the trip to Orlando.
Up to the Escape Lounge which whilst not quiet, was not rammed full like I have seen it on occasions. Interestingly, we were directed to the right hand side of the “normal” Escape Lounge – not taken to the Delta Escape Lounge like in February.
Passed the time in the lounge whilst resisting the urge to read the papers – plently of time on the flight or that. I am wondering if my friend “Mr G4S” will be at the gate again this time round.
Wandered down to gate 212 and boarding was just about to start. No Mr G4S & the ground crew did boarding by cabin, starting with Upper Class (no mention if Flying Club Gold either).
Onboard G-VXLG and was offered some of that pretty awful Gardet Brut Premier Cru that Virgin are passing off as champagne now. I know it is champagne but what was wrong with the Lanson?
Pushed back a couple of minutes late and had an uneventful takeoff. The service started with drinks & lunch orders being taken when the seatbelt sign pinged at 10,000ft. Everything was going fine until we got to about the East cost of Ireland – when the Captain came on the PA saying we were returning to Manchester due to a fault with the aircraft.
All the service items were quickly cleared away and we took about 50mins to get back to Manchester, whilst dumping fuel. You could tell that the fault with the aircraft was not life-threatening as the descent was completely controlled and the crew were talking and chatting in the galley – they would not have been doing this if they expected the landing to be anything other then routine. This did not stop some passengers freaking out though, including one passenger in Upper Class – the crew let her partner stay with her on the ottoman until the final seatbelt sign went on, then a crew member stayed with her until about 30secs from touchdown, when he ran for his seat.
We had a completely uneventful, but very heavy, landing in Manchester. Were greeted off the runway by fire crews who followed us to a remote stand. My initial thoughts were that we will not be going today as there were a load of busses & a couple of sets of steps waiting for us on the stand. Also, the tug drove off as we approached the stand.
After a while on stand, the Captain came on the PA to advise that engineering are trying to fix the problem & that a replacement flight crew have been called in to operate the flight. Orange juice, water & cookies were offered to passengers in Upper Class.
A bit later we had a further update that the fault had been located and could be fixed. One of the replacement flight crew is already at the airport too. Then the FSM made the killer announcement – there would be no hot food on the flight as the meals had started to cook before we diverted, so they cannot be served. They had called the caterers who said it would take 4hrs to re-cater the flight, so they are loading extra sandwiches, snacks and cold food. This is no huge loss for me, because I was less than impressed with the menu in Upper Class so had selected a cold Thai Beef Salad & was going to have the cheese. Fingers crossed these should be OK as they are chilled. It’s now 14:30 and I’ve not had a huge amount to eat today… knew I should have had that bacon roll they offered in the Escape Lounge! (But no, I thought lunch on the plane would only be a few hours away).
For those who are interested, the current Upper Class menu for VS75 / VS73 & VS77 is as follows (April menu cycle);
Starters
Pea and mint soup (v)
Warm chicken satay
Buffalo mozzarella and Roma tomatoes (v)
Mains
Lemon and thyme chicken
Seafood Linguine
Keralan curry (v)
Chilled Thai beef salad
Pudding
Warm brioche and butter pudding
Chocolate torte
Cheese
French brie
Stilton
Applewood wedge cheddar
The new captain came on the PA to announce 10mins to push-back – we were just waiting for a bag to be loaded… his bag. The technical fault had been with a cooling fan that triggered a warning light & they decided to return to Manchester as a precaution & to get the fault fixed. Must have cost them a fair bit for the fuel we dumped.
At about 15:20 we departed for round 2 of VS75. Expected flight time is now faster than earlier with 8h14m expected – and from the off it is clear they are trying to make up time as the time to Orlando in Skymap is decreasing faster than “real time”.
Drinks were offered pretty quickly – as was lunch. The FSM’s announcement on the ground must have been intended for either the Economy or Premium Economy cabin(s) as the full Upper Class menu was served. In my opinion this Upper Class menu is not one of Virgins’ best – but each to their own.
When lunch service started, the table on seat 9K was totally jammed shut. The crew tried all they could to free it (including bending a few knives) but to no avail. They ended up ripping the tray table out of the seat wall and bypassing the micro-switches underneath the seat so it could go into bed mode. That will be a good one for the defect book – just leave it sitting on top of the tray table with a note saying “spot where this needs to go”.
During lunch we got another update from the captain that started “Well this is about as far as you got earlier” and he went onto confirm that all was looking fine on the flight deck & that we should expect an earlier then planned arrival into Orlando – probably around 7pm local time (so 4hrs late). The only saving grace is that this should mean we miss the afternoon rush at immigration.
After lunch I slept a bit but thankfully woke up in time for the Haagen Dazs run. Just over 4hrs of the flight left, so it looks like we’ll be into Orlando at 18:50ish.
Afternoon tea was the normal fare – but I was not particularly hungry and had a couple of sandwiches and some coffee. The cabin was secured for landing about an hour later.
A fairly quick descent followed – and we landed at Orlando at 18:50, so we had made up some time. As predicted immigration was not too bad. I got directed to a self-serve kiosk, it scanned my passport & detected it was a UK passport / I am a British Citizen & it then decided to error with an “Invalid Country” message. Thankfully the people overseeing the kiosks allowed me to use the small queue for seeing a CBP Officer after the kiosks – as the immigration hall was filling up now.
So all in all, another good flight with Virgin. Shame about the return to Manchester & the delays caused, but safety has to come first.
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