I was flying VS#7 LHR-LAX in Upper Class this past July. The flight was scheduled to depart at 12:00noon. The Virgin website stated that check-in must be completed 60 minutes prior to scheduled departure time (11:00am). When I arrived at 10:40am, there was not a single person waiting to be checked into Upper Class. The security man looked at my ticket and said "You're really cutting it close, I don't know if they will still allow you to check-in but you can go ahead and try", and then motioned for me to go on in. Needless to say, I was quite disturbed to hear this but I proceeded to the agent at the desk, she took a look at my ticket and said something to the effect of: "Oh my, they're about to close this flight". She tinkered with her keyboard and out popped my boarding pass just like normal. I proceeded to the Virgin Clubhouse and had plenty of time to eat some cereal before boarding my flight. Having arrived at what I thought was 20 minutes prior to the check-in deadline, I was anxious to find out what the true policy is. I sent an email to Customer Relations and after a long delay received a reply that was pretty much full of the normal corporate doublespeak I have come to expect from every company of any size, followed by: "The check in desks of all flights close sixty minutes prior to the scheduled time of departure. This is regardless of the class of cabin travelled." The Customer Relations "Executive" continued: "With regards to the comments made by our Ground Staff at Heathrow, I would like to re-iterate the information that our website states:

Make sure you leave yourself enough time to get through the airport. Our check in facilities will close 60 mins prior to the scheduled departure time of the flight. Passengers who fail to complete check in procedures by this time will not be able to travel.
We suggest you check in 2-3 hours prior to your flight to allow for security and check in queues.

As such, I am sure our agents were merely concerned that the 80 minutes you allowed on this occasion, may not have been sufficient time, in comparison to the recommended 120-180 minutes, in which to ensure you were allowed to travel."

As far as I can tell, the ground staff's comments were much ado about nothing and caused me a great deal of needless concern (albeit for a very short time).