Hello again and welcome to this set of reports covering my annual trip to London.
Here's the routing:
12/23/16: Virgin Atlantic 26, JFK-LHR, A340-600, Premium Economy (You are Here)
1/1/17: Virgin Atlantic 137, LHR-JFK, A330-300, Premium Economy (Here)
I was searching for flights to London for about a week and couldn't find anything less than $1000, but I came across these premium economy VS flights on a Delta codeshare for $750, more than $300 less than the economy fares. I jumped on the opportunity and booked it right away. The day after, the same routing was over $2000. I'll take it!
An early start put us at JFK's Terminal 4 at 6:20am.
It was already heaving!
There were three desks for the 38 seat premium economy section. Our check-in agent was very friendly and joked around a lot. The process took 10 minutes.
Heading towards security, I noticed that priority security came along with our W ticket. The standard line was estimated to take 30 minutes, while the priority line took 10.
Always a nice view after security.
Down the escalators, and a right turn towards the A gates.
A great spot for breakfast food (not).
FIDS.
The A pier of Terminal 4 is quite short.
Ahh, memories from my EK flight to Dubai - this is where I had breakfast that morning!
A nice sunrise and some quick iPhone spotting.
Hello, G-VWIN, I know you! I flew on you last time I came back to London! (Read my economy flight report from G-VWIN here)
Today's flight was from gate A2.
Not too many seats around.
Boarding began 2 minutes behind schedule at 7:22am starting with people needing additional time, and then priority (J, W, and all the elites).
The small premium economy section.
Nice leather seats (much better than cloth in my opinion).
These seats had similar pitch and width to a US domestic First seat - plenty for a transatlantic hop.
Placed on the seat were headphones, a pillow, a blanket, and a bottle of water (not shown).
Tiny screens with dreadful quality, the same as those in Y.
And hidden below the seats - DC power! Who is gonna use that? Nobody!
Seat controls. One for forwards and backwards, one for lumbar support (to be honest, the latter didn't really change anything). A few seats over, a kid reclined his seat all the way back before pushback, and the person behind him yelled, "put your seat up, I'm not having this!" - the joys of flying.
The standard seatback pocket contents:
T
he two flight attendants stationed in W came around and offered OJ or champagne and a newspaper. Our captain announced a "REEEEAALLY quick" flight time of 5h40m.
Sadly, all the window seats were booked (except the row without windows), so I was stuck in the middle. No views or pictures of the outside this report :(
We pushed back at 8:38 and began our taxi at 8:46.
Huh, I thought we were leaving from JFK, not Miami :)
It was a short taxi to runway 22R, where we were first in line for takeoff. We departed at 8:57, 42 minutes behind schedule.
Once we were in the air, I browsed the movie selection (which was quite good) and picked out Nerve to pass the time before the meal.
Menus came through shortly thereafter. I was a bit confused as to when the meals would be served, but surprises are good sometimes, right?
Breakfast came way earlier than I thought it would, arriving at 9:30! The tray as delivered:
Nice branding on the tray.
The "warm pastry" was some sort of apple thing, and it was quite good. The fruit was also nice and fresh. I couldn't bring myself to eat the yoghurt and granola as I'd had breakfast at the airport as well, but overall, I was very happy with this meal.
More juice/water was offered after the meal was cleared away, and we had made it to here.
I'm not a huge fan of Family Guy, but VS had two episodes and it was humorous enough to pass the time.
A bag of pretzels and drink of choice was offered around this location. I really like having the small "tray tables" on the end of the armrest - perfect for snacks like these!
I hopped up to check out the bathroom at one point.
A complete overview of the (nice and small) W cabin. There were curtains separating J, W, and Y, which really made it feel like a personalised experience.
The final meal came around at 12:05, only 2.5 hours after breakfast. I'm not sure why, but I was hungry again. I opted for the beef option, as I usually do. The tray as delivered:
The beef, unwrapped. The beef itself was very flavorful and tender, but everything else was pretty 'meh'.
The chicken option - it got good marks from my dad.
The vegetarian option - it got "pretty good" marks from my mom.
The salad was one of the first decent salads I've ever had on an airplane!
I'm allergic to walnuts (read my SXM-JFK and EWR-SFO reports for fun stories about that), and I didn't want to take the risk with the pecan dessert. According to my mom and dad, however, it was the best part of the meal.
At the end of the meal, we had made it to here.
On a side note, it's worth mentioning that the two crew members in W were excellent. Very friendly and super attentive - the benefits of a small cabin!
Like I said earlier, I wasn't at a window seat, so I don't really have any more pictures until I got off the airplane.
We made 3 circles on approach to Heathrow and touched down at 20:00 local time on runway 27R.
We made the long walk through T3 and had a very quick run through immigration.
That pretty much wraps up this report - thanks so much for reading! Leave a comment if you feel inclined, I love reading and responding to them.
Happy New Year to all - part two will be up next year!
-Daniel
Great report of your flight with Virgin Atlantic. I haven't seen a report about them in a while, and it was good to see pictures about their Premium Economy product. The seats controls look very worn and dirty, but the food looks pretty good, and I like that Virgin offers a much different meal in that cabin for the additional price. I haven't thought of taking a morning flight to London, but I might consider that now after seeing your report as I'm planning on visiting a friend in London later this year.
Thank you for sharing!
Thanks for reading! I'd highly recommend a morning flight to London - it's much less tiring than a redeye as long as you don't sleep!
Nice report! There aren't many VS Premium Economy reviews out there, so it's good to see one. I've flown VS PE a few times, but that was before Flight-Report. Have to say, I'm a fan of VS PE. As you say the seats are comfortable and the service is typically above average for Premium Economy. Thanks for sharing!
Very nice report. VS is slowly installing USB ports on the A346s, but I guess you didn't get lucky. This A346 also has Gogo 2Ku WiFi installed, but seemingly still deactivated. Did the crew mention it at all?
Glad you enjoyed the report! Absolutely no mention of wifi whatsoever, the even mentioned that laptops needed to have wifi switched off. I didn't check for a network though, so who knows!
Hello, Daniel00, and thank you for this FR!
Virgin Atlantic's PE looks pretty solid! Definitely worth the $750 price tag. I didn't know it was even possible to score a price tag below $1000/head for a London-US journey that's above Y class.
How does their IFE compare to other airlines flying the same route?
London is a highly popular destination for tourists worldwide, so if you want to choose a good spot for the new year, I'd recommend Primrose Hill where you can get a good view of London's skyline.
Hope you'll enjoy your time in London!
Happy new year, and once again thank you for this pleasant FR