by Jim Bellomo | Jun 1, 2024 | Air travel
This trip is our first time on Virgin Atlantic Air. I had heard good things about them, but sadly, I have to say that it’s all a lie. Well, it’s mostly a lie.
We were flying in Business Class, which is (of course) a little spendy. When you fly in business, you expect that if you pay that kind of money, you will get a product on par with other business class flights we have taken. But I knew as soon as we boarded this would not be a great flight.
First, the seats were the narrowest Business class seats I have ever seen. There was a small shelf with a can of water on it. You had to fold up the shelf for takeoff and landing. But I had to fold it up right away because there was no way I could sit in the seat with it open. There was no storage. Most Business class seats have decent storage. A place to put your phone or Kindle, but not on Virgin. There’s a tiny slot already filled with headphones, the airline magazine and the safety card. And that’s about all it would fit. That meant I had to keep my phone and pretty much anything else I wanted to have with me on my seat next to me.
One of the main reasons for choosing Business Class is the promise of lay-flat seats. In all our previous Business Class experiences, the seats began in an upright position and could be reclined to a fully flat position. This was not the case with Virgin Atlantic. The seat settings were limited to two extremes: upright or completely flat, like a dining room chair. Transitioning between these settings was cumbersome, adding to the overall dissatisfaction.
When you wanted to get some sleep, you had to stand up, move everything off the seat (hold it all while standing in the aisle) and then press a button that tilted the seat forward and flattened it. (I am so sorry I didn’t get a photo of that, but I promise to get one on the way home. The photo above is one I stole off the web.) Then, behind the seat, there was a large bag (like a cloth laundry bag) with a mattress cover, pillow and blanket inside of it. You made up your own bed (even though we had been told that the flight staff would do it), and that was that. It was almost impossible to do anything in the seat once it was flat. And you still had all the stuff you had when it was upright, except now you couldn’t put your headphones away either.
I have to admit that I got a couple of hours of sleep, but the bed part was pretty hard and not very long, so that meant sleeping on my side with my legs curled up. Speaking of the seat being…not very long…anyone over my height would have a very hard time sitting in the upright position. A tiny footstool sticks out into the aisle, and my feet barely fit on it. If my legs had been any longer, I would have had to put them over and into the aisle. Not good.
Speaking of the aisle, these were the most open seats we have ever seen. You were looking directly at the people sitting across the aisle from you. It’s one of the strangest configurations I have ever seen. My buddy Mike sent me a photo of his Virgin seat on an Airbus plane, and it looked very nice—more like the seats we are used to. Our 787 did not get those very nice seats.
There were other things even if you liked the seats (I don’t know how you could). The entertainment system had some movies, some TV, audio and game selections as well. But except for one film, they were all pretty old, and I had seen them. It was kind of sad, actually. I hope they change the movies before we go home at the end of the month.
It wasn’t all bad. The service was excellent, and the crew was very nice. Dinner was outstanding—some of the best food I have had on an airplane. But breakfast was totally inedible. I don’t get that. Some of the worst coffee I have ever had, cold fried sweet potatoes and a quiche that was as salty as the Dead Sea. The OJ they gave me came in a glass that was sticky all over. You can bet I passed on that.
Maybe the best thing about flying Virgin into Heathrow is that they land at Terminal 3. Most flights from the US land at Terminal 5, especially those from the US. But Virgin pretty much has Terminal 3 to itself. This meant getting off the plane and through passport control and customs in less than ten minutes. This is unheard of at Terminal 5. We had planned our usual time to do that and so had told our driver from Welcome Pickups to grab us at 11:00 am. We thought if we landed at 10 (as we were supposed to do), we would be an hour getting through. It took 2.5 hours on previous trips to get clear through in Terminal 5. But our flight arrived early, and by the time we got through passport control and customs, it was only 10:20. I called our driver, and he said he would be there by 10:40. That was super.
Speaking of drivers, when we went to Portugal last winter, I found a new transfer company to get us from airports to planes, planes to trains and trains to hotels. They are called Welcome Pickups. I have to give them a shout-out here because we have already used them twice on this trip, and they are superb! They are worldwide, and you can hire them easily on their website. So far, we used them at home to get to SeaTac, then another driver picked us up at Heathrow and took us across London to Kings Cross rail station to catch our train to Leeds. Both were on time or early. Both texted us to let us know where they were. Both stayed right on top of everything. This is the same way it was in Portugal. We have at least three more Welcome Pickups trips arranged on this trip. They charge a predetermined price (like Uber or Lyft), and it is right in the same ballpark price-wise. But they meet your plane (holding a sign with our name on it at Arrivals), they help you with your bags, and they get you where you are going as quickly as possible. Yesterday’s ride to King’s Cross would have been even worse in a taxi. We had horrendous traffic, and I would have been watching the meter all the way as it went off the charts. BTW: I know I have used the quote below before but it is still the truth. And to my British followers, I am NOT doing my Victor Meldrake impersonation.
Airplane travel is nature’s way of making you look like your passport photo. —Al Gore
by Jim Bellomo | Dec 1, 2023 | Air travel
I have absolutely nothing better to do right now than write this post. Plus, I have been up for 24 hours at this point, and I still have at least eight more to go before I can go to bed. We are about three and a half hours through a five-hour layover at Charles DeGaulle Airport in Paris, France, where the weather is cold and foggy.
Our travel day started off well with a perfect pickup by Century Car Service. We have been using them for a while now and are very happy with them. Our forever neighbor Lisa told us about them as she books them for her group at Microsoft. They are ALWAYS early. I love that. The drivers are classy, the cars sparkle, and we get whisked off to the airport like we were on a magic carpet. (Lousy analogy—but remember, I have been up for 24 hours.)
When we got to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (SeaTac), we got through check-in and TSA pre-check security pretty darn quick, and we were off on the train to the S-gates, where we could spend our time waiting in The Club, a very nice lounge we get to use courtesy of our Chase Sapphire Visa card. What was especially nice was that our old friend Seth Wayne was also flying out (on British Air) simultaneously, so he came in and spent some time talking about travel like we always do. Seth is our friend who used to be a television weather person, had a weekly travel show on the radio (that I was a guest on a few times), then worked for Holland America and now owns his own escorted travel business, Sail with Seth.
After our visit with Seth, it was time to board our Delta flight, non-stop to Paris with connections (that’s what we are waiting for right now) to Lisbon. We flew on Delta coming home from Europe in the fall of 2022, and we were really not that happy with them. The seats in Business were hard as rocks; the food was just okay. For what we pay for Business Class, we kind of expect better.
So, if that is the case, why did I book a flight on Delta? The answer is—I didn’t. I booked a flight on Air France. I booked it about eleven months, and somewhere in the middle of those eleven months, Air France decided that flying to and from Seattle was just not profitable, so they pulled out and codeshared all their flights with Delta. So I didn’t pick them out; Air France did. We weren’t happy.
We are OK with it now. We are on an older plane (in this case, it turns out that’s a good thing as the newer ones have harder seats), and the food was pretty darn good. The service was excellent, and I am actually looking forward to going home on their service from here in Paris to Seattle.
When we disembarked in Paris (we have never flown to or through DeGaulle airport—the only time we have been to Paris, we flew into a smaller airport north of the city), we had to walk about a mile to get to where we could wait for our next flight. Not only that, we had to go out of and back into security and clear passport control. Took about an hour and a half. And their security is a total pain. You have to take everything out of your bags that we haven’t had to do in ages. My laptop, my Kindle, my Phone, my belt, Kathleen’s quart bag of makeup and beauty stuff, our coats…you name it, we had to put it in a basket for scanning.
Thank goodness we didn’t have a tight connection. We were happy to see what gate our next flight would be because there was an Air France First Class lounge right next to the gate. And sure enough—there was…but it was closed for renovations and the nearest other lounge we could into was back on the other side of that security and passport control we had just cone through. There was no way we were going back.
So we have been sitting here on very hard chairs (I just checked with my butt, and it agrees with me), freezing as this is a very cold part of the terminal, and the temperature outside is barely freezing.
This morning, before we left, my buddy Bob was giving me a hard time about flying. He is not a fan. Usually, I am okay with it, especially when we are in business or first class. But this long layover in a cold terminal on a hard seat is beginning to get to me. And then I think—what the hell? You are on vacation. You are in Europe. You got to fly here in Business class. Shut the heck up and stop complaining. I think I will do that as soon as we get to our Lisbon hotel, and I can take a shower and a nap. On the West Coast, where we live, it is 3:30 am. It’s 12:30 pm here in Paris, and we won’t be at the hotel until around 4:00. I’ll let you know tomorrow if we make it ?.
What’s important is that a customer should get off the airplane feeling, ‘I didn’t just get from A to B. I had one of the most pleasant experiences I ever had, and I’ll be back for that reason. – Herb Kelleher
by Jim Bellomo | Mar 1, 2022 | Air travel
Editor’s note: I started this post off as a quick and short note on Business Class but as I usually do, I wandered out to other stuff. So let’s do all the classes—First class to Economy over a couple of posts. Today, just a vanishing breed—actual First Class.
Recently I saw a question on a Facebook group that was asking if booking Business Class (BC) airfare to Europe from the USA was a good idea. It was quite a discussion with lots of differing opinions. Of course I chimed in on that discussion so I thought this would make a decent post. I know that some of you fly Business or First Class (FC), although many airlines are eliminating FC entirely.
Alaska Air First Class
Speaking of First Class, let’s discuss the difference between domestic and international FC. For instance, when we fly Alaska Airlines FC to the East Coast that’s a great example of domestic FC. The seats are like a La-Z-Boy recliner that doesn’t go all the way back or have a footrest. You do get better meals (pre-pandemic it was hot on almost all airlines—some switched to cold during the pandemic) as well as pre-boarding but that is about it. You might get access to a pre-boarding or layover lounge but maybe not—depends on the airline and the airport. That’s about it.
When you fly FC on an international carrier like British, Cathay Pacific, Singapore, etc. you get more…a lot more. You usually get a “suite.” For instance, when we flew First Class on Cathay Pacific to Hong Kong a few years back we were sitting in seats that Kathleen was able to stretch out her arms in both direction and not touch another seat. If you scroll through the slide show you will also see the most luxurious First Class suites in the world—Emirate Airlines.
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Kathleen in her Cathay Pacific First Class Suite
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The ultimate in First Class-Emirates
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This is Emirates when it is bed time.
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Yes, this is the Emirates First class Lavatory
Seriously, that seat my wonderful bride is sitting in, is just one seat. And not only that, it lays down flat. And in FC they actually come and make up a bed after you have a very nice dinner and drinks. I mean the menu is excellent. Lots of choices. Some airlines even have a snack bar area where you can grab between meal snacks. High end wines and high end liquor. First class restrooms also are huge! On the plane Kathleen is on in that photo, they were so big they had their own window. But check out the bathroom on the Emirates plane. Seriously? They also give you toiletries and more in a little amenity kit. It is something special. And the Emirates suites just blow me away. Price to fly in that suite from Seattle to Dubai is only $21,000. Don’t think we will be flying those any time soon.
I should mention that we paid for that First Class we took completely with miles/points. And it cost a bunch of them. And I kept checking the price we would have had to pay for that flight. When we finally flew, those seats were selling for more than $12,000 each. We always save up those points by not flying FC within the USA. We will fly FC if we are going all the way to Florida. Pretty much anything more than six hours but then it’s just Alaska-style FC.
In the next post I will take a deep dive in Business Class, what we fly internationally.
When you fly, you should fly Business or First Class…or your kids will. —unknown poster on the Viking Cruises Facebook Group
