iKacper
Jun 1, 12, 4:59 pm
Hello Everyone!
I'm a longtime reader of various trip reports, but this will be the first report I've ever written so bear with me. I'll be writing about Virgin Atlantic flights VS40 & VS39 from Chicago's O'Hare International to London Heathrow Airport from the perspective of someone trying their economy class product. Very well, let's begin!
VS40
ORD-LHR
5/24/12
Seat: 44G (A340-600)
Takeoff- 18:00 (18:30-Actual)
Landing- 8:00 (8:10-Actual)
I was flying with my family (Mother, Father, Sister and Myself) so getting all ready and getting out of the house is always an ordeal. We asked our neighbor to give us a lift to the airport in his pickup, and we arrived at the Virgin Atlantic stand at O'Hare's Terminal 5 at about 16:30, so about an hour and a half before the flight was scheduled to leave. This is more or less normal for my family, since we hate standing around at the airport, and there's never a problem with catching the flight. The terminal was more or less empty, only Virgin and perhaps two other airlines' stands were manned, so there were no crowds and no real line at the security checkpoint. We got in line at Virgin's check-in stand which had about five people working and a crowd of about fifteen waiting to check their luggage. For some reason, the lines moved incredibly slowly. I think we waited about twenty minutes and there was only two people ahead of us. Either way, when it was our turn we were helped by a professional, friendly and Polish-speaking agent. My mother joked around with her about getting a free upgrade to business class, unfortunately without luck. But she did tell us that a few weeks earlier on one of their flights the business class meal service featured ice sculptures shaped like Richard Branson's head, which I found a little funny. Once she was done checking us in, (We were the last people there) she took us with her through security and we got the VIP treatment with our own dedicated security line. It was very cool to go through security using the crew line, even if the real line for security wasn't that long. Terminal 5 at O’Hare is a complete desert both airside and ground-side. I personally have never seen that as a problem since I always eat at home and have no need for any airport services when flying out, especially later at night on trans-atlantic flights, however a businessman was asking the TSA agent what food to get past security and the guy couldn’t answer. The businessmen seemed stunned when he found his options were McDonalds and Burger King. So heads up to anyone flying through O’Hare: eat at home. Once we had past security we had about ten minutes or so of waiting before boarding commenced. (Upperclass first, then Economy Plus, then Economy from the back to the front) In that time I watched a Cathay 777 push back next to us starting it’s long trip to Hong Kong. (This service just started this year at O’Hare, so it was exciting to see such an exotic bird)
On board the plane I took stock of my surroundings. The plane overall is a little old but looks good. It was set up in a 2-4-2 configuration and was clean with chrome finishings on the overhead bins and the individual air nozzles. We each had a AVOD screen on the seat in front of us which were red (middle seats) and gray (outside seats) with seats marked as “extra legroom” being purple. Overall the cabin looked good, and the legroom was pretty decent, nothing extraordinary. Blankets and pillows were also provided. My compliments on the blankets: they were red, very warm, decent quality, but most importantly shaped in such a way that there was a hole for your head and two flaps that you could wrap around your neck so the blanket would not slip. It was similar to a snuggie, except without the sleeves. I personally found them to be very ingenious and well designed. The specific section of the cabin in which I happened to be sitting (Right behind the wing) was situated between the entrance to the crew rest (Which created a “bulkhead”), two lavatories, and the emergency exits. I found this to be very cool even if the lavatories were loud and annoying, the section seemed like a small “mini-cabin” with five rows isolated from the rest of the plane, which made for an enjoyable flight experience. Before pushback the safety video played (It was “quirky” but I didn’t find it all that impressive) and the crew made an endless amount of announcements. They welcomed us a few times, they briefed us on the flight time a bunch of times, they reminded people to sit down and buckle up, etc. The captain talked three or so times, and announced the flight time as seven hours and twenty-eight minutes. (How precise!) There was a lot of unnecessary talking as far as I’m concerned and it was a bit annoying. We pushed back at the scheduled time and began to taxi... and taxi... and taxi some more. After about a half hour of taxi the Captain came on and said that due to winds that were gusting to 40 mph we had to taxi to the longest and farthest runway at O’Hare and there were lots of delays which is why the taxi process felt like, in his own words, “taxiing all the way to Heathrow”. After about a half-hour on the tarmac we finally took off. This was very interesting to me since the spoilers on the wing was opened and closed, sometimes to the highest position during the takeoff roll. I assume this is to prevent roll from the wind during the roll, but I’m not one hundred per cent sure. Either way, the roll wasn’t particularly violent, even with the wind, but the takeoff featured what I would consider “moderate” turbulence. It really wasn’t very bad, but I was sitting right behind the wing. I imagine it must have been more violent near the ends of this plane, especially since it’s the world’s longest!
After a few minutes, the ride became more smooth. The crew handed out individual menus (Very nice, especially in the cheap seats) began drink service, and handed out amenity kits (Socks, toothbrush, donation envelope, eye mask, and earplugs. All very nice, though mediocre quality) The crew was professional but not particularly “chatty” or superficially friendly, probably since they had over two-hundred people to take care of. I never eat on airplanes, so I cannot tell you the details of the food service or even what the choices were, but from what my parents said, it was decent. The plane was not completely full, and I’d say for every three rows there were two or three seats empty. The row in front of me, which featured a little extra legroom, and was a bulkhead due to the crew rest stairs, was completely empty. Therefore, my father and I moved up in life and enjoyed the extra inches of legroom while my sister and mother laid out to sleep on a row of four seats.
Virgin features full AVOD called V:Port. The it’s a little slow and unresponsive and while it’s laid out pretty logically, it takes a while to get to what you want. V:Port has music, flight tracking, movies, TV shows, and news, so you should be covered for every flight. The movie selections are pretty good. Lots of Oscar-winning/nominated films (The Artist, Iron Lady, Moneyball, etc.) films for kids, and comedies. No complaints here. The TV show selection isn’t bad either. Lots of different shows, but only one or two episodes of each show. I watched a movie (The Sitter. It was horrible) and then quickly went to bed. I snoozed, and was woken a few times due to turbulence which was moderate at it’s worse, but quickly passed each time. I slept through the breakfast service, and I was nauseous during the final hour of flight. (I always get airsick on longer flights) We began descent, and entered into a holding pattern over Heathrow, but we landed more or less on time and taxied quickly to our gate. We exited the plane and walked through an endless amount of hallways, excuse me, “corridors” until we got to passport control which was quick and painless at such an early hour. We picked up our luggage and quickly took a cab into the city to begin our vacation.
Return Flight:
VS39
LHR-ORD
5/30/12
Seat: 55G
Takeoff- 11:00 (11:00 Actual)
Landing- 1:55 (1:45 Actual)
Arriving at Heathrow’s Terminal 3 was quick and painless by taxi while check in was not as simple. The check in area was very modern and decor wise it was excellent. There were self service check in computers and then you dropped your bags off at the manned counter. The computers were unresponsive, confusing, and asked for lots of very odd information. (“Will you be in the USA for longer or less the eight hours?”) The check-in process was a little annoying and took a long time as the area was pretty crowded. That being said, I the day before I had a 101 degree fever, and I was still sick the day of the flight, so everything for me was an ordeal. After that we hung out at a restaurant for a little while before going through security (Very quick) and walking onto the plane. For some reason at the gate there was a passport and boarding pass inspection rather then just a quick scan of the boarding pass as in the United States which caused a long line and slowed things down a bit. Once on the plane I took my seat in a eighty per cent filled plane. Taxi was quick, takeoff was quick and more or less turbulence free and as soon as the seatbelt sign turned off, I jumped up to take a window seat two rows up. This seat also happened to have extra legroom since it was purple rather then gray like the other window seats, so I was extra lucky. The crew passed out amenity kits, menus, headphones, and began drink service. After about a half hour of flight time one of the flight attendants came up to me and asked me if I was flying alone. (There was no one next to me, my parents were in the row ahead) I explained to him that I was not, and he asked me if I would be willing to switch to the emergency exit row two rows ahead on the left side of the plane. (I was on the right) Apparently two people couldn’t sit in those seats for one reason or another and he wanted these seats for them. I wasn’t really excited about switching but then he told me that I would have to move to my original, middle, regular legroom seat so I quickly changed my mind. I didn’t want to sit next to the emergency exit because people like to congregate there (which indeed did happen, but it gave me a chance to flirt with a cute Irish girl with pretty green eyes who was coming to Chicago for the summer to work. If you’re reading this, please email me. :D) and it’s close to the bathroom. However I really enjoyed having more legroom then upperclass and having complete privacy with no one next to me or even in sight. It was wonderful. I enjoyed a couple of films on V:Port and a few on my laptop, skipping the food service and sipping tea. (Just black, no milk or sugar, which surprised the flight attendant every time) I took a walk around the plane and went to the galley in the very back. While I assumed our flight was smooth, the galley in the back was rocking up and down the entire time I was there. It was a pretty interesting feeling, and it reminded me of being on the top of the Sears Tower on a windy day. The A340-600 is a pretty incredible plane, indeed. Our routing took us over beautiful Canadian lakes which I enjoyed looking at, and before I knew it, our 7:48 hour flight time went by and the aircraft began descending. (Which of course drew a crowd by the lavatory, including the already mentioned Irish girl:p) The captain took us into an approach that put us extremely close and low to the city of Chicago. It was incredible. I have never in my life flown that approach and we flew super low over the city so you could see all the sights. It was like being on a helicopter tour. I’m so glad I was on the left side of the plane. We followed the Kennedy expressway north-west and landed with a huge thud on the left landing gear (People, including the flight attendant gasped) far down the runway. Strong breaking (Reverse thrust, breaks, spoilers, and even ailerons were utilized) brought us to a stop and we began taxiing to the gate. Out my window I saw a cargo 747 surrounded by fire trucks standing on the taxiway. I didn’t know why that was at the time, but now I know that it had clipped a commuter jet during taxi. I also saw a United 747 being towed from Terminal 5 (Where it arrives to use customs) to Terminal 1 (Where it departs). We pulled into our gate, the door was quickly opened, and we quickly got through customs. The bags took forever to arrive, but we didn’t have to go through agriculture customs, but that never takes that much time. Our trip was over, and we took a taxi back home to the suburbs.
Overall, I have to say that Virgin Atlantic is a great airline. The crew was professional and pleasant. Not chatty, not superficially friendly, but they’re not there to be your best friends. The planes look nice, both inside and out. The AVOD is excellent, the food didn’t get anyone violently sick during the flight as far as I know it, their ground crew is consistently good. Not excellent, but overall it’s pretty decent with some bright spots. My biggest complaint would be the excessive amount of announcements prior to the flight, and even during the flight as well. The biggest difference to me is that there is a certain amount of spunk or rebelliousness in what they do. They seem to all feel like rebels in the airline world. The crew has very high morale, and this impacts their work in a very positive way. The captain announced an eight year olds birthday and asked everyone to clap, their safety video is different and quirky (I personally didn’t like it, but it’s different. At least they’re trying) and they offer more amenities then other airlines. Plus they were on time. And... if you’re in Upperclass, you can enjoy their onboard bar! I had a very positive and pleasant experience on Virgin and I’d definitely fly to England with them again.
I hope you all enjoyed my Trip Report. I'm sorry for lack of pictures or food information. Please leave comments, good or bad!
I'm a longtime reader of various trip reports, but this will be the first report I've ever written so bear with me. I'll be writing about Virgin Atlantic flights VS40 & VS39 from Chicago's O'Hare International to London Heathrow Airport from the perspective of someone trying their economy class product. Very well, let's begin!
VS40
ORD-LHR
5/24/12
Seat: 44G (A340-600)
Takeoff- 18:00 (18:30-Actual)
Landing- 8:00 (8:10-Actual)
I was flying with my family (Mother, Father, Sister and Myself) so getting all ready and getting out of the house is always an ordeal. We asked our neighbor to give us a lift to the airport in his pickup, and we arrived at the Virgin Atlantic stand at O'Hare's Terminal 5 at about 16:30, so about an hour and a half before the flight was scheduled to leave. This is more or less normal for my family, since we hate standing around at the airport, and there's never a problem with catching the flight. The terminal was more or less empty, only Virgin and perhaps two other airlines' stands were manned, so there were no crowds and no real line at the security checkpoint. We got in line at Virgin's check-in stand which had about five people working and a crowd of about fifteen waiting to check their luggage. For some reason, the lines moved incredibly slowly. I think we waited about twenty minutes and there was only two people ahead of us. Either way, when it was our turn we were helped by a professional, friendly and Polish-speaking agent. My mother joked around with her about getting a free upgrade to business class, unfortunately without luck. But she did tell us that a few weeks earlier on one of their flights the business class meal service featured ice sculptures shaped like Richard Branson's head, which I found a little funny. Once she was done checking us in, (We were the last people there) she took us with her through security and we got the VIP treatment with our own dedicated security line. It was very cool to go through security using the crew line, even if the real line for security wasn't that long. Terminal 5 at O’Hare is a complete desert both airside and ground-side. I personally have never seen that as a problem since I always eat at home and have no need for any airport services when flying out, especially later at night on trans-atlantic flights, however a businessman was asking the TSA agent what food to get past security and the guy couldn’t answer. The businessmen seemed stunned when he found his options were McDonalds and Burger King. So heads up to anyone flying through O’Hare: eat at home. Once we had past security we had about ten minutes or so of waiting before boarding commenced. (Upperclass first, then Economy Plus, then Economy from the back to the front) In that time I watched a Cathay 777 push back next to us starting it’s long trip to Hong Kong. (This service just started this year at O’Hare, so it was exciting to see such an exotic bird)
On board the plane I took stock of my surroundings. The plane overall is a little old but looks good. It was set up in a 2-4-2 configuration and was clean with chrome finishings on the overhead bins and the individual air nozzles. We each had a AVOD screen on the seat in front of us which were red (middle seats) and gray (outside seats) with seats marked as “extra legroom” being purple. Overall the cabin looked good, and the legroom was pretty decent, nothing extraordinary. Blankets and pillows were also provided. My compliments on the blankets: they were red, very warm, decent quality, but most importantly shaped in such a way that there was a hole for your head and two flaps that you could wrap around your neck so the blanket would not slip. It was similar to a snuggie, except without the sleeves. I personally found them to be very ingenious and well designed. The specific section of the cabin in which I happened to be sitting (Right behind the wing) was situated between the entrance to the crew rest (Which created a “bulkhead”), two lavatories, and the emergency exits. I found this to be very cool even if the lavatories were loud and annoying, the section seemed like a small “mini-cabin” with five rows isolated from the rest of the plane, which made for an enjoyable flight experience. Before pushback the safety video played (It was “quirky” but I didn’t find it all that impressive) and the crew made an endless amount of announcements. They welcomed us a few times, they briefed us on the flight time a bunch of times, they reminded people to sit down and buckle up, etc. The captain talked three or so times, and announced the flight time as seven hours and twenty-eight minutes. (How precise!) There was a lot of unnecessary talking as far as I’m concerned and it was a bit annoying. We pushed back at the scheduled time and began to taxi... and taxi... and taxi some more. After about a half hour of taxi the Captain came on and said that due to winds that were gusting to 40 mph we had to taxi to the longest and farthest runway at O’Hare and there were lots of delays which is why the taxi process felt like, in his own words, “taxiing all the way to Heathrow”. After about a half-hour on the tarmac we finally took off. This was very interesting to me since the spoilers on the wing was opened and closed, sometimes to the highest position during the takeoff roll. I assume this is to prevent roll from the wind during the roll, but I’m not one hundred per cent sure. Either way, the roll wasn’t particularly violent, even with the wind, but the takeoff featured what I would consider “moderate” turbulence. It really wasn’t very bad, but I was sitting right behind the wing. I imagine it must have been more violent near the ends of this plane, especially since it’s the world’s longest!
After a few minutes, the ride became more smooth. The crew handed out individual menus (Very nice, especially in the cheap seats) began drink service, and handed out amenity kits (Socks, toothbrush, donation envelope, eye mask, and earplugs. All very nice, though mediocre quality) The crew was professional but not particularly “chatty” or superficially friendly, probably since they had over two-hundred people to take care of. I never eat on airplanes, so I cannot tell you the details of the food service or even what the choices were, but from what my parents said, it was decent. The plane was not completely full, and I’d say for every three rows there were two or three seats empty. The row in front of me, which featured a little extra legroom, and was a bulkhead due to the crew rest stairs, was completely empty. Therefore, my father and I moved up in life and enjoyed the extra inches of legroom while my sister and mother laid out to sleep on a row of four seats.
Virgin features full AVOD called V:Port. The it’s a little slow and unresponsive and while it’s laid out pretty logically, it takes a while to get to what you want. V:Port has music, flight tracking, movies, TV shows, and news, so you should be covered for every flight. The movie selections are pretty good. Lots of Oscar-winning/nominated films (The Artist, Iron Lady, Moneyball, etc.) films for kids, and comedies. No complaints here. The TV show selection isn’t bad either. Lots of different shows, but only one or two episodes of each show. I watched a movie (The Sitter. It was horrible) and then quickly went to bed. I snoozed, and was woken a few times due to turbulence which was moderate at it’s worse, but quickly passed each time. I slept through the breakfast service, and I was nauseous during the final hour of flight. (I always get airsick on longer flights) We began descent, and entered into a holding pattern over Heathrow, but we landed more or less on time and taxied quickly to our gate. We exited the plane and walked through an endless amount of hallways, excuse me, “corridors” until we got to passport control which was quick and painless at such an early hour. We picked up our luggage and quickly took a cab into the city to begin our vacation.
Return Flight:
VS39
LHR-ORD
5/30/12
Seat: 55G
Takeoff- 11:00 (11:00 Actual)
Landing- 1:55 (1:45 Actual)
Arriving at Heathrow’s Terminal 3 was quick and painless by taxi while check in was not as simple. The check in area was very modern and decor wise it was excellent. There were self service check in computers and then you dropped your bags off at the manned counter. The computers were unresponsive, confusing, and asked for lots of very odd information. (“Will you be in the USA for longer or less the eight hours?”) The check-in process was a little annoying and took a long time as the area was pretty crowded. That being said, I the day before I had a 101 degree fever, and I was still sick the day of the flight, so everything for me was an ordeal. After that we hung out at a restaurant for a little while before going through security (Very quick) and walking onto the plane. For some reason at the gate there was a passport and boarding pass inspection rather then just a quick scan of the boarding pass as in the United States which caused a long line and slowed things down a bit. Once on the plane I took my seat in a eighty per cent filled plane. Taxi was quick, takeoff was quick and more or less turbulence free and as soon as the seatbelt sign turned off, I jumped up to take a window seat two rows up. This seat also happened to have extra legroom since it was purple rather then gray like the other window seats, so I was extra lucky. The crew passed out amenity kits, menus, headphones, and began drink service. After about a half hour of flight time one of the flight attendants came up to me and asked me if I was flying alone. (There was no one next to me, my parents were in the row ahead) I explained to him that I was not, and he asked me if I would be willing to switch to the emergency exit row two rows ahead on the left side of the plane. (I was on the right) Apparently two people couldn’t sit in those seats for one reason or another and he wanted these seats for them. I wasn’t really excited about switching but then he told me that I would have to move to my original, middle, regular legroom seat so I quickly changed my mind. I didn’t want to sit next to the emergency exit because people like to congregate there (which indeed did happen, but it gave me a chance to flirt with a cute Irish girl with pretty green eyes who was coming to Chicago for the summer to work. If you’re reading this, please email me. :D) and it’s close to the bathroom. However I really enjoyed having more legroom then upperclass and having complete privacy with no one next to me or even in sight. It was wonderful. I enjoyed a couple of films on V:Port and a few on my laptop, skipping the food service and sipping tea. (Just black, no milk or sugar, which surprised the flight attendant every time) I took a walk around the plane and went to the galley in the very back. While I assumed our flight was smooth, the galley in the back was rocking up and down the entire time I was there. It was a pretty interesting feeling, and it reminded me of being on the top of the Sears Tower on a windy day. The A340-600 is a pretty incredible plane, indeed. Our routing took us over beautiful Canadian lakes which I enjoyed looking at, and before I knew it, our 7:48 hour flight time went by and the aircraft began descending. (Which of course drew a crowd by the lavatory, including the already mentioned Irish girl:p) The captain took us into an approach that put us extremely close and low to the city of Chicago. It was incredible. I have never in my life flown that approach and we flew super low over the city so you could see all the sights. It was like being on a helicopter tour. I’m so glad I was on the left side of the plane. We followed the Kennedy expressway north-west and landed with a huge thud on the left landing gear (People, including the flight attendant gasped) far down the runway. Strong breaking (Reverse thrust, breaks, spoilers, and even ailerons were utilized) brought us to a stop and we began taxiing to the gate. Out my window I saw a cargo 747 surrounded by fire trucks standing on the taxiway. I didn’t know why that was at the time, but now I know that it had clipped a commuter jet during taxi. I also saw a United 747 being towed from Terminal 5 (Where it arrives to use customs) to Terminal 1 (Where it departs). We pulled into our gate, the door was quickly opened, and we quickly got through customs. The bags took forever to arrive, but we didn’t have to go through agriculture customs, but that never takes that much time. Our trip was over, and we took a taxi back home to the suburbs.
Overall, I have to say that Virgin Atlantic is a great airline. The crew was professional and pleasant. Not chatty, not superficially friendly, but they’re not there to be your best friends. The planes look nice, both inside and out. The AVOD is excellent, the food didn’t get anyone violently sick during the flight as far as I know it, their ground crew is consistently good. Not excellent, but overall it’s pretty decent with some bright spots. My biggest complaint would be the excessive amount of announcements prior to the flight, and even during the flight as well. The biggest difference to me is that there is a certain amount of spunk or rebelliousness in what they do. They seem to all feel like rebels in the airline world. The crew has very high morale, and this impacts their work in a very positive way. The captain announced an eight year olds birthday and asked everyone to clap, their safety video is different and quirky (I personally didn’t like it, but it’s different. At least they’re trying) and they offer more amenities then other airlines. Plus they were on time. And... if you’re in Upperclass, you can enjoy their onboard bar! I had a very positive and pleasant experience on Virgin and I’d definitely fly to England with them again.
I hope you all enjoyed my Trip Report. I'm sorry for lack of pictures or food information. Please leave comments, good or bad!