Review of Virgin Atlantic flight London → New York in Business

First Operational Flight for G-VEII

We took Virgin Atlantic on our trip over to New York this month. We were fortunate to fly on both of Virgin's Newer Products, this outbound trip would be on a Factory-Fresh A330-900neo (G-VEII) with the aircraft making its first run with passengers having been delivered 6 days prior from Toulouse. 

virgin atlantic clubhouse - lhr

Myself and my Wife took advantage of our first time in the Clubhouse and arrived via the Upper Class Wing in Terminal 3. The process of checking in to being through the private security channel and into the duty free area took no more than 10 minutes. This was despite the ongoing issues at Heathrow relating to the security strikes.

The staff at the Upper Class Wing we very helpful, we had no issues with getting our Uber Driver to navigate to the wing and were let straight through on the provision of our names & flight details.

The lounge itself is large and comfortable, with our flight VS9 departing at 2:40pm it gave us plenty of time to relax. We took advantage of the switch over between Breakfast and Lunch service to order a mixture of Breakfast and Lunch dishes via table service. The option to order via QR code was also present throughout the lounge (something we used later on in between visits to the roof terrace).

The lounges offers good views of the D gates in T3 and provided the perfect space to relax preflight. We even squeezed in a couple of games of Pool.

At 1:50pm we were invited to board, only 10 minutes behind the original planned boarding time. Boarding was swift and we were whisked through in Group 1.

VS9 Flight lhr - jfk

Aircraft: Airbus A330-900neo
Tail registration: G-VEII
Engines: 2x RR
Age: 0.1 years
Layout: C32 W46 Y184
Named: Queen of the Skies
Comments: Inaugural flight for G-VEII - having been delivered from TLS on 31st March 2023.

Prior to our trip over the Atlantic I had spent the few weeks in the run up to the trip painfully watching the booking for any signs of an equipment swap. My Wife and I had built up a number of miles over the previous year and the Wedding expenditure certainly helped us hit the various bonuses.

On booking the Reward Seats I'd carefully looked to find a trip which placed us on the A330-900neo and the A350-1000 in order to allow us to try Virgin's newer Upper Class products. I was nervous around the fact that at the time of booking VS only had 3 of the Neo delivered and was pleased to see when G-VEII had been delivered in the week prior to our departure.

Having checked the day off the flight and seeing that we had been assigned G-VEII for the flight I was more than pleased to finally get to sample that "New Plane Smell"!

Once we had been welcomed onboard by the attentive crew and boarding had been completed. The Captain announced to the Cabin about the age of the Aircraft.

Once seated we were offered the usual Pre-departure Fizz, we were offered a choice on this flight between Champagne, Orange Juice or Bucks Fizz before departure.

Pushback was swift and before we knew it we were feeling the Power of the RR Trent 7000 lift us off of a sunny Heathrow.

The seat

There was plenty of leg room (I'm 6ft tall) and place to stow belongings before take off in the footwell. There is also a small cubby hole to the right of the seat which provided ample room for storing the Amenity Kit.

There are two separate panels on the side of the suite house the seat controls which allow you to recline all the way into a fully flat bed.

The rear of the seat featured a little cupboard which was used to store the VS Headphones and a small can of water prior to departure. A mirror was also fixed on the inside of the door taking the total to two in the small suite.

The IFE Screen on the Neo is the only thing that could do with a bit of refinement. I experienced a lot of glare during my watching (being very picky here). I would have been interested to see how it would have looked when sitting adjacent to a window.

The ability to pair the IFE with my own Bluetooth Headphones was excellent and ensured that I was able to use my own comfortable in-ear pods rather than the over head units.

The selection onboard the IFE was mixed, I think this was purely down to the timing of our trip just before the peak Summer Period as I have flown with VS many times before in other cabins and the selections have generally been very good.

The Upper Class products on the Neo come with fully extending doors, these pop out when they are pushed into the frame and offer a very good level of privacy. When fully closed you really get the feeling of a private cabin at eye level.

A side note, the crew did have some slight issues with these in the run up to preparing for departure as not all of the indicator lights at floor level were showing that the seats were indeed "Ready" for departure. Thankfully the crew were pragmatic and got the problems solved in the space just after departure.

Dining

April the 5th was the first day of VS's new Summer Dining Launch, plenty of information can be found out about this online currently. With the King's Coronation and the change of Seasons VS had opted to change the menu. As a result we were unable to pre-order our dishes prior to departure on the portal.

For starter I had opted for the Gravlax Starter, it was fresh - generally tasted very good. I wasn't a massive fan however of the pickled cucumber.

Main I again opted for the Baked Haddock, Dauphinoise Potato,Mushroom with a Pea Puree. Topped up with a glass of Whispering Angel Rose.

For Dessert I opted for the Pimms Summer Pudding (sadly I scoffed it before realising I hadn't taken a photo!)

The crew

The crew on this flight were excellent, attentive to our every need and even to the point of offering to empty the trademark tiny Airplane Salt & Pepper Shakers.

Our glasses never found themselves empty and our every need was met. A particular thanks to a member of the crew who supplied my Wife with a full bottle of Champagne by way of an apology when a particular dish she had ordered off of the menu was no longer available. Only one missing ingredient was required and instead she was offered an alternative with elements of her requested dish added on the side so she could sample it.

arrival into jfk

A little over 7 hours from our Departure from LHR we had begun our Final Approach into JFK. The visibility on Final was poor and we ad been warned by the Captain to expect an extended hold, however, the Weather did just about clear enough for us to swoop down in the weather window.

Unfortunately for us - we arrived into JFK a little after 5:40pm. We were the 3/4 International Flights to enter the Immigration Hall at Terminal 4. We spent just over 2 hours queuing for an immigration official to inspect our Passports before breezing us through in under 30 seconds. The Hall itself was dirty, boiling hot and the snaking queue generally made for a pretty rubbish end to the Flight.

We managed to grab a Yellow Cab to Manhattan and down to our Hotel in the Financial District.