Welcome aboard another VA Trip Report - this time in business class from Melbourne to Brisbane.
We start today in the Melbourne VA Lounge. It is a relatively small lounge based on its size and suffers many of the same issue plaguing carriers like DL in the states. As we've previously discussed, obtaining lounge access with VA is far too easy with entry available through Gold Status or better with VA or with an AMEX Platinum Card.
I don't think I have ever been in this lounge when it hasn't been almost completely at capacity - even the early weekend morning jaunts are crowded…. Still much more comfortable than the crowded T3/4 at Melb!
Today's aircraft was VH-YFH, a 12 year old 737-800 originally delivered in 2011 - it has spent its entire life with VA.
In another note - this flight has VA surpass QF in terms of total flight numbers for me since I started tracking property in c.2018. Accounting for all the time I spent ferrying between Mel and BNE on Virgin Blue as a wee lad there would have been no competition :P
VA's 737 Business Class is set up in a 2x2 format - using what I believe is the same recliner chair used by QF on their domestic biz. It is nonetheless reasonably comfortable, and probably on par with the US legacy carriers.
Suffice to say, there is ample legroom for a 2 hour flight.
I was welcomed aboard with a sparkling wine. It was rather punchy, not sure what it is but I don't imagine it would be more than $20 a bottle.
Through the dirty windows we can spot the CA A350 getting ready to depart for Beijing. We pushed back slightly ahead of schedule at 5:09pm
The beautiful A350 up close, with a sneaky UL A330 in the background bound for Colombo.
We were in the air approx. 15 mins after push back, and cruising into the setting sun.
Tonight's meal was the ever present mustard chicken - personally I think this is the weakest of their dinner options, it taste like a packet mix sauce and if you look closely you can see that there were about six pieces of chicken…. In contrast their chicken parmigiana with mash is fantastic - I've attached a pic from an earlier flight for comparison. I had this 3 flights in a row and I was still keen for it everytime! The mustard chicken, not so much. The parmi feels like a J meal, whereas the mustard chicken feels like a Y meal - that's the best way I can summarise it.
Nonetheless, ignoring my whinging and moaning I was starving having not eaten in the lounge, so it was demolished outside of beans (I hate beans!).
I kicked back and caught up on some stuff on the ole iPad and shortly thereafter we were descending into Brisbane. J and Platinum customers get free wifi access. It works well in my experience. Plus there is a large variety of movies and tv shows for streaming.
Nice report on VA J. While it's probably not as good as it was pre-bankruptcy, the experience seems to have been improved from the darker days coming out of the pandemic when I believe they were serving meals in a box in J? I imagine the lack of meal options gets boring for frequent flyers--I have the same experience with BA. Nevertheless, pretty competitive product considering VA's re-positioning as an LCC-hybrid. I will have several domestic J sectors on QF in a few months and it will be interesting to compare the experiences.
Thanks for sharing!