This is a Trip Report from the Economy cabin
Ground Staff
Food & Drink
Entertainment
Seat
Cabin Crew
No drama on the journey (except for quite heavy traffic on the M25), or security (no need to visit the check-in or bag drop as I packed light with hand luggage only
), so it wasn’t long before I was at the gate admiring the view of G-VHOT Tubular Belle. It was only then I realised that it had been almost 2 years since I was last on a VS 747. Although she was a little dated, she has aged pretty well. 
I had booked myself an aisle seat on the upper deck, which was a good choice. The flight was great – service was excellent throughout, with 2 lovely members of CC looking after economy pax on the upper deck. They engaged in conversations with pax, and were pretty friendly and helpful. The only area for improvement that I noted was that they did not offer drinks other than at meal service, which was a slight let down.
I noticed quite a few service improvements in economy, and these are:
• For the afternoon service, there is now a choice of 2 sandwiches/wraps. As someone who can’t eat cheese while in the air, this was a great improvement.
• The dinner service now contains a tiny cracker with some soft cheese. Although this is not my sort of thing, I imagine some pax will appreciate this.
• There’s a hot towel before meal service; not the proper towel you get in the premium cabins, but a hot paper towel is a nice touch.
• With tea and coffee after dinner, there’s also an offer of some little chocolates. A much appreciated improvement!
• As others have pointed out recently, a small bottle of water is on the seat waiting when you board. This is another thing that I found really useful, but possibly why no drinks were offered between meals?
I was very impressed by all these changes - I think they make a meaningful difference to the economy experience, and make it more on par with some of VS's Asian competitors.
Overall I enjoyed the flight more than I thought I would, given that it was in economy on a pretty old plane. On balance I do prefer economy seats on the A330, and touchscreen Vera, but being in a smaller and quieter cabin upstairs made up for it. The flight was pretty full, with 370 pax on board (I didn’t realise it could fit so many people in), but the upper class section upstairs only seemed to have a couple of pax in.
I struggled slightly with the IFE, and perhaps one of the CC saw my crazy Tai Chi moves with the controller in an attempt to pause the film (I watched The Theory of Everything, which was very moving and brought a tear to my eye
), as my IFE was restarted half way through the film without me raising this with anyone. Not sure how I feel about that still – whether the CC should be praised for spotting it and being proactive, or they should’ve let me know at least that it was going to happen. Like any good electronic devices, though, the IFE worked a treat after the restart. I am a regular watcher of the VS Destination Guides (it helps my afternoon tea/breakfast go down before we get ready to land), and was pleasantly surprised that a few of them have recently been updated. Does anyone else watch these…? 
We arrived at JFK a few minutes late at 19.01, and thanks to the self-service kiosks (after 4 attempts with an agent’s help) I was through in no time. Although I was a little wary of how late the flight is at the time of booking, it worked really well and I was at the hotel (after a small detour due to me taking the wrong airtrain
) near Grand Central by around 9pm, ready for a good rest, followed by some sightseeing and revisiting my favourite spots in one of my favourite cities in the coming 4 days. 
