Virgin Atlantic Flying Club - Virgin flat-beds NOT in Upper Class

In my opinion Virgin are being even more cheeky than BA with their advertising that their fleet is progressively being upgraded to have flat-beds in Upper Class.

After a few calls to their booking line I understand they only have ONE plane with the beds on board, and the second is quite a way off.

I realise these things take some time but they have been at just one plane for a very long time now - which smacks of marketing bull****.

Equally - I note that the fabled flting "double-bed" has been discreetly dropped (thank heavens).

Latest flying club mailing states that G-VAST will join G-VXLG with the new seats on 3rd September, used on the New York, Washington, LA and San Fran routes.

When I was last in LHR Clubhouse I had a long chat with one hostess who told me that Richard had been in earlier in the day and was annoyed because he'd seen BAs ads everywhere about the flat beds in Club, and that they'd had 'problems' fitting their own and had fallen well behind schedule. Makes sense given that many cabins have been upgraded with the ommission of seats- this sort of stuff is only done on major maintenance interval so if you miss one you wait ages for the next...

DNW

Someone told me the new bed seats aren't flat ones like BU Club World anyway?

They are inclined at an angle so your feet are effectively under the chair in front.

Does anyone know if this is true?

yup, saw pictures quite a while ago. the seat itself is in fact "flat" but it does have an angle against the floor, therefore your feet go under the seat infront of you.

I've just taken a Virgin flight from LHR-JFK with the new seats fitted. No, they don't recline into fully-flat beds, but they are extremely comfortable. The design is such that each seat is angled to extend under the one in front(sounds odd, but it works quite well, providing something like 6ft 8in of space). There's also a lot of space around the seats (including almost 1ft between the window seats and the side of the plane), toghether with some useful storage areas. I would be interested to hear from anyone who has flown on both the new Upper Class and BA Club World seats...