Virgin Atlantic

Despite the flashy adverts Virgin is lacking in many areas. Our flight to DXB was in the B747 and what a disappointment. The entire aircraft was outdated cramped and opposite to the adverts. Entertainment was just ok hardly anything special. The meals are good and staff are friendly but that is as far as it goes. On the other hand the A340 aircraft (our return flight) was fairly new and much more upgraded but the seating was still small and cramped with little extras to justify the price apart from being a direct flight.

Flew San Francisco to London Heathrow in May 2014. I had checked in online however whilst the bag drop queue was short it was very slow moving. Boarding not particularly organised but a fairly warm welcome on boarding. No magazines or newspapers available on boarding. Main meal was really poor - crew accidentally forgot to give us a menu our preferred food option was not available portion size was very small and the food was low quality. I would happily have paid extra for more/better quality food. I would strongly recommend eating before boarding (as we had). Reasonable drinks selection. Decent range of inflight entertainment but handheld control had one broken button which made it very difficult to select options. Overhead locker space limited due to failure to enforce baggage rules (very large trolley cases allowed on board). Amenity kit blanket and pillow all provided and all decent quality for an economy cabin. I managed to sleep for several hours. Overall the experience was passable as I had booked on a virgin miles discount offer - however I would have been disappointed (even for economy) if I had paid full price for this booking. I travel long haul several times a year and as others have commented; Virgin has a poor economy cabin compared to other transatlantic and other carriers.

Travelled Gatwick to Montego Bay on a 747. Very disappointed with the quality of the premium economy cabin. The plane was clearly passed its 'sell by' date. It looked tired and old with an entertainment system that was difficult to see. On the outward leg the magazine rack was broken and although an engineer tried to solve the problem it was not usable and flapped about throughout the flight. On the return journey the arm rest containing the table was broken and separated from the chair. The stewardess was unable to get help and in the end used sticky tape to hold the arm rest in place. She was going to take the arm rest away and replace with a towel but our comments about basic safety and the need to make it safe led to the makeshift solution. Then there is the food which is probably the worst I have had flying premium economy. Is this a case of an airline flying a route with little competition and therefore setting the lowest possible tolerable standard? An old tired plane with average and below average service.

I had my first Virgin flight from Shanghai to Heathrow on April 18th. I will not be flying Virgin again. The food was poor frozen salad and frozen bread rolls. The inflight entertainment was limited plane very hot despite asking for heating to adjusted service poor. Compared to 2 flights on Air New Zealand (good food warm bread attentive service and a great range of entertainment) this was a very disappointing experience.

Travelled from Manchester to San Francisco on the way to New Zealand to visit my son. I decided to splash out with premium economy not worth it at all! Food was absolutely terrible - and I had to ask for a wine re-fill. Staff very slow and not too bothered. Not at all what I expected. My husband travelled Economy and had a whole row of seats to himself it seems that the most crowded part of the plane was Premium Economy. Not at all worth the extra money. On the return trip - Shanghai to Manchester the journey was very much the same though more crowded. Never Again.

Have flown with Virgin Atlantic for the last 3 years from GLA-MCO-GLA in the Premium Economy cabins. 1st year was on a a Boeing 747-400 in the old cabin design. We were in the upper deck and the flight was absolutely fantastic. The last 2 years we flew on the Airbus A300-300 and again the service was second to none! I have nothing but praise for Virgin Atlantic. Every bit of their service is fantastic. My fiancee and I have also flown numerous occasions to the Middle East and New York with Virgin Atlantic and again cannot fault the experience. So much so we are due to fly to the USA again with Virgin Atlantic in May 2014 to Grenada in December 2014 USA next spring (2015) and we will be booking again for New York in December 2015.

I recently returned from a trip to Barbados with Virgin Atlantic and I can say I will certainly use them again. I booked premium economy both ways and was more than happy with the whole experience. Checking in at Gatwick with dedicated desk for premium meant we were straight through no problem. On board upstairs in jumbo given glass of bubbly as I took my seat loads of room to stow stuff and good inflight DVDs food not bad either. Returning was also excellent had the front 2 seats upstairs again couple drinks before dinner and slept for a while. Overall a good experience with Virgin and I would recommend premium economy no problem.

By far one of the worst flights I've had. Flew PVG-LHR on one of the A340-600 in 60K (G-VWEB). I'm 5" 8' so not the largest person in the world and yet my knees were being poked the entire flight by the pocket from the seat in front of me. Padding on the seat was pretty much non-existent resulting in a rather numb behind after a short time into the flight. Also it's worth noting that it seems seats in A and K mostly have something under them for the in-flight entertainment system. This meant I had even less space to stretch if needed due to that being under the seat in front of me. The headrest was incapable of keeping the position of the wings that are on it collapsing the second you put your head against it. If the person in the seat in front puts their seat back it makes the experience even more claustrophobic - not to mention making it hard to use the screen for the in-flight entertainment. Not that that matters as the screen quality is so bad you won't want to use it anyway. Then there is the food - it's tasteless overcooked and there's not a lot of quantity to it. At least they came around at reasonable times with it and offered drinks fairly often during the flight. Also the lack of any form of power is annoying not even a USB port for plugging a phone/tablet into.

Just flown SYD-HKG-LHR and LHR-HKG-SYD in Upper Class. Flat bed most uncomfortable with little to no help in preparing the bed for attempted sleep. Majority of staff extremely bored unhelpful and one just simply rude. Planes were old worn in-flight entertainment minuscule airport lounges were dirty and do not look like those advertised on the internet. $7.000 return for what was slightly very slightly above economy standard was disappointing and will never be repeated. Giving one out of five in ratings but should really be nil.

We flew Gatwick to Barbados on the 747 and the seats were so comfortable I said to my husband it really wouldn't be worth the money to upgrade to Premium. On the return we flew on the Airbus A330 and it was a completely different experience. I've never been so uncomfortable on a plane in my life. The seats were hard and the head rests had nothing to support your head when you wanted to sleep (unlike the 747). Even my 7 year old daughter who usually sleeps really well on flights didn't sleep at all. I've had more comfortable experiences on Thomas Cook and that's saying something! I feel like Virgin need to up their game as we've flown Emirates a few times and they are far more superior with much better aircraft like the A380. In future I would rather change my destination if it means flying on the A330.