Virgin Atlantic

VS603/4 10-22nd March. LHR-CPT return A346 Economy. Fantastic flights have flown with Virgin several times in the past year and their onboard product is very consistent unlike BA. Also the staff are all really friendly and work hard again unlike BA. Food was plentiful and a good choice. Movie and TV choice was fantastic.

Flew Business from London to Boston. Virgin ClubHouse in LHR is awesome. What a way to start a trip. The flight was on a new 787-9 which is a beautiful aircraft. The inflight crew were superb. Excellent food and drinks and very good IFE but monitors not that large. Not wild about the seat configuration. I was traveling with my husband and no way for two passengers to sit together. The seat itself was odd to say the least. Very narrow and the seat doesn't recline very much or offer any personal storage space. You then have to get up to have the seat convert to a bed. It was comfortable as a bed. We had flown over to Europe on Delta and the Business seat on the A330 was vastly superior to the Virgin seat.

Gatwick to St Lucia return. This was our first time on the A330 in what I think they call Upper Class 2. Definitely not as comfortable as the Upper Class seats on the 747 and A340-600 aircraft. There seemed to be numerous faults with the seats not converting into beds and VV without manual assistance. Virgin need to improve their Upper Class seats considering those offered by their competitors. They might get away with it across the Atlantic but not travelling East. Food and drink was good and also good service.

Flew LHR-Cape Town-LHR last month. First the good(ish) news. The LHR lounge was comfortable but rather crowded (despite which the upper level was closed). Food and drink good but if they insist on making everything waiter service they could with more staff. (The Cape Town lounge which is not Virgin's own was however a dismal experience). On board the crew were fine. Food average to good apart from an inedible first course (some sort of chicken mousse) to dinner on the return flight and wines were excellent. Now the bad news: the seating. (1) It was very narrow with no room for an armrest on one side. (2) Converting from seat to bed is not done electronically as in all other business class seats I've ever flown on. The operation requires the passenger to get out of the seat (which cannot of course be done with seat belt signs on) so the back of the seat can be folded forward to make the "mattress". This cumbersome procedure is a real nuisance especially if (as often happens on long-haul flights) you wish to go from seat to bed and back again more than once. (3) The "window" seats give only the most restricted view out of the windows. In fact alternative rows of seats have no window at all (what's more the on-line seating plan doesn't show the position of windows to enable you to choose a seat with a view). The other rows have a window but the seats are so angled (presumably to save space) that you have to look back over your should to get a glimpse of the outside. In all this seating design should never have got off the drawing board and is certainly not worth paying a full business class fare for. Never again.

Flew with VS in Upper Class to and from St Lucia during Feb/Mar 15. Both flights were ok and we shall continue to use VS. The food inflight entertainment bar etc are not important to us our priorities are lounge access frequent flyer miles and onboard space which we are happy to pay a premium for. However we did feel that the Upper Class suite on their A330 aircraft is now smaller in width and length and the aisles are very narrow when compared to the 747 that used to operate to and from St Lucia. Also the manual operation of the seat conversion to the bed appears to be a step backwards. On a positive note though the crisp white duvet and pillow is very welcome!

Flew from LHR to SFO in PE not impressed food not as good as either BA or Air NZ both of which we have travelled recently. Found seat uncomfortable especially when the person in front fully reclines their seat you need to be a contortionist to get out from the window seat. The worst thing from my point of view was that there was no Audio music available due to problems with performing rights issues as some one who always listen to music on a flight I found this disgusting that this had not been sorted out. Virgin could at least given passengers the use of MP3 players or similar turned out being a very boring flight. Would not fly Virgin again unless no one else available.

We flew LGW-LAS in the upper deck of the refurbished 747. Although it was nearly a full flight the attendants were excellent and provided a very good experience overall. Movies were up to date with a very good selection (Over 70). Flight back was ANU-LGW on A330. again very good service and well worth the extra legroom seats we paid for. Would definitely fly Virgin again on these routes.

Flew from Heathrow to Jo'burg in January decided to fly out Premium as a treat as the adverts look so inviting. I have to say it was the most uncomfortable flight of my life nothing like the advert at all. I use to fly to SA a lot in the late 1970s early 80s and looking at the panelling of the plane I think it was the same plane now very tired and run down. There is extra leg room and the seats recline further but that also means the chair in front reclines further on to your lap. Service very good food very average. Maybe the plane in the advert flies to America but certainly not South Africa. We flew direct back from Cape Town economy and I have to say was dreading it. Not too bad as the plane was nearly empty so could spread out. Crew rarely seen only when pushing their trolleys. around food even more average. All very disappointing. Certainly would never fly Virgin again to South Africa. Maybe to America and get lucky and get the plane the plane in the advert.

Just had a return flight from LGW to MCO in economy and it was excellent. Was dreading the flights having had the flight from hell with BA from New York and reading the poor Virgin reviews. Both flights were very good (paid for extra legroom on return night flight). Meals were ok nothing fancy but filled a hole drinks were good films very good.

I have just returned from a holiday in Cuba. I flew with Virgin for the first time. I had booked a package holiday and was surprised to see that I would have to pay £25 to reserve a seat. After already paying £3000 for myself and my husband I did not want to pay another £50 to choose our seats that we had already paid for. Therefore I left it until 24 hours before the flight so I could choose my seats for "free". I logged on and was told I could not choose my seats so we had to leave it until we checked in. We ended up on the very last row of the plane. Once on the plane we had 2 alcoholic drinks and then they ran out of drinks. This is really quite bad on a 10 hour day time flight. Then we were given a menu but by the time they got Half way through the plane they had run out of our choice of meal. On the return journey they didn't even have my first choice of drink and by the time they got to our evening meal they only had a choice if water or juice. This is really bad for any flight but especially a long flight. I had always heard good things about Virgin which is why we thought it was worth travelling from Yorkshire to Gatwick for this flight. I think we might have been better off with Thomas Cook from Manchester.