VS044 LAS-LGW 23 DEC 18 (Upper Class)

This is a Trip Report from the Upper Class cabin

Ground Staff

Food & Drink

Entertainment

Seat

Cabin Crew

I booked my return flight from Vegas to Gatwick hoping to land on the morning of Christmas Eve. Everything appeared to conspire against this - a few days before there was the drone scare that closed Gatwick for about 24 hours, and then President Trump announced that he could not agree a budget with the Democrats so much of the American Government shut down on the 21st! Luckily not Air Traffic Control or the Passport / Border Control. So it appeared that I would get away on the right day and home for Christmas. But on the morning of the 23rd I received an email from Virgin telling me that the plane would be delayed at least 7 hours. This would throw out my travel / Christmas plans quite a lot but at least I would get home before the 25th. The plane had been delayed leaving London hence the delay in Vegas.

I had had a lovely holiday in Vegas but was ready to go home, and all packed up ready for check out of the Wynn Hotel at noon so decided just to head to the airport anyway. The lounge there is shared so does not feel quite so luxurious or special as the dedicated lounges, but it was somewhere I could relax and have a supply of drinks / snacks to keep me going. They also gave us all a voucher for $30 when we checked in but I did not use mine as I stayed in the lounge.

Previously when I have flown Upper Class there have always been two dedicated cabin crew but on that night there was just one, Katie from Scotland, who was great. She had some help during dinner service but was pretty much on her own for take off and landing and during the rest of the flight. But she found time to make all the passengers in the cabin feel that they were being taken care of. Because of the delay out and apparent issues that delayed the flight there were no magazines on the flight - I'd read all my books so could have done with some magazines. The choice of films / TV was the same as the flight out, and I had found it pretty poor on the way out.

The dinner menu on the return leg was different from the menu out, and I have uploaded it for information. I decided not to have a main course, just the antipasti plate with great bresola and ham, and the cheese board. Both were great. Because the flight was leaving so late, it actually felt like a proper night flight, and I was really tired, so settled down in my seat (6A) and slept well for much of the night. This is not usual for me, as I often struggle to sleep on the plane. Having 6A helped but the cabin was really quiet all night, with no one using the bar, and most people slept through. I did have several mugs of tea during the night, I love that you can get a mug rather than cup on Virgin! And for breakfast I had bran flakes and a maple Danish.

Landing at Gatwick was smooth, and we exited the plane the other side of Premium so waited for that cabin to clear before we could leave but that was fine. The e-readers at Gatwick would not work for my passport, although it had been fine for me in Vegas when I used the Global Entry readers. And so my luggage was on the carousel by the time I got to baggage reclaim. All in all it was a good flight with no incident apart from the late departure which set my Christmas plans back.

E-Readers failed after about a month on my new passport, but always work at Global Entry as they don't use the chip, relying on the numeric code instead

[buns]

Thanks for the TR

Glad you managed to have such a good flight back after all the worry of the delays at Gatwick caused by the drone sightings.

buns