Virgin Atlantic

I flew from Cape Town last Saturday 29th March to LHR. My flight was good and staff great but the food and drink served during the flight was awful.

A330 JFK-LHR Upper Class. Virgins new Dream Suite. Check in at JFK very smooth Lounge is excellent - probably the best at JFK - great service and excellent food - a very good start! Boarding on time and easy A330 with new configuration clean and quite striking at first the bar is groovy and the cabin also. Service was discreet and casual which I liked food just OK but the cooked breakfast was quite good - nice china and glassware - very good and attentive FA's. Excellent entertainment system. The seat: The Dream Suite is a nightmare an absolute disaster! A classic case of style over substance. The new seat is incredibly cramped I am 6ft and weigh 175lbs - I had to squeeze myself into this horrible seat! The are two positions - somewhat reclined and flat no leg-rest - nothing in between - this was a daytime flight I wanted to lie back and relax but not sleep - hugely uncomfortable. There is one very small flip out plastic arm rest on one side - nothing on the other - whoever heard of a business class seat without an armrest - ridiculous. There is zero storage space and Virgin has got rid of the overhead bins in the center of the plane - there were about 15 people in upper class - it seats 32 I think - we were fighting over bin space and I only bring one small hand bag - again ridiculous Virgin cannot imagine what it would be like if full. Frills are nice champagne glasses are nice but the reason people buy business/upper class seats is for space and comfort - these new suites offer neither - they have to be the very worst of the new generation flat bed seats. Premium economy seats are wider and have two armrests - how novel! One got the impression that the FA's are fully aware that this is an awful product. I have changed my return flight to the 747 with the old seats- never again!

SFO-LHR-SFO in March 2014 in Premium Economy. Fourth trip on Virgin Atlantic in 2 years and third time in Premium Economy. Used the Miles Plus money booking feature for Flying Club members. Excellent value for money and very impressed with on-board service. Extra cost is worth the larger seat and better recline. Good meal service both ways and decent food portion sizes. A little stingy with the drink service. Older 747s showing signs of age and outdated IFE needs upgrading soon. VS is now my preferred carrier across the pond. Love the dedicated check-in and early boarding privilege.

Manchester to Orlando out January back March. My biggest gripe is the seats are very uncomfortable and the food was awful. I would much prefer a good sandwich than the dried up hot meal that is offered. The cabin crew on both flights were very good and the entertainment system is excellent.

A Virgin Atlantic Upper Class fare apparently does not allow you to use fast-track lanes at Heathrow. Virgin Atlantic offers the best pre-flight and post-flight service in the business; excellent food attentive staff both in the Heathrow Clubhouse as well as their Boston Logan lounge and the Revivals Lounge at Heathrow. Cabin staff are very attentive too although a bit slow. On-board food is mediocre; eat on the ground if you have the time. The problem are Virgin's Upper Class seats. I'm slender and not too tall and even I had a very hard time being comfortable in them. Due to the poor seats I'm not likely to fly VA again which is a pity given their excellent service.

Was UpperClass Gold Card 10 years ago. New seats food service ambience handling are a huge step backwards to basically an average Premium Economy service. Delta is Vastly superior in all respects! Seats face away from window narrow rushed service. Very expensive tickets. Virgins only superiority will be the Lounges - even these are overcrowded nowadays. Economy is a very bad joke Online Check-in pointless. Plenty of slogans and packaging zero content/value for money. Unstable unreliable entertainment.

Mar 2014 St Lucia-Gatwick. Another very good flight with Virgin. Cabin service was very good. As this was an overnight flight we had dinner and then slept for the remainder of the flight. Although the crew advised the new suite is the same size it didn't feel as long as the previous version. The actual mattress comfort though was superior and I was about to get several hours of sleep. The full English breakfast served could have been warmer apart from that it was all good.

Feb 2014 Gatwick-St Lucia. My partner and I use Virgin where possible for out long haul flights normally in Upper Class. This flight was probably one of the best we have had with Virgin. The Clubhouse at Gatwick is somewhat smaller than Heathrow but it is more than adequate and offer all of the facilities one would expect. St Lucia is now served by the new A330 a very nice aircraft but the Upper Class cabin is now 3 times the size of the 747 and has lost its spacious feel. The new suites are ok but they do feel cramped and squashed together when compared to those on the 747. The crew did advise that they were the same size maybe so but at 6ft I used to be able to stretch my legs out fully using the foot stool but I was unable to do this with the new suite. Not a huge problem as it was comfortable but that does seem a small backward step when compared to other business class. The cabin service was excellent choice of wines good and entertainment fare more than can be enjoyed during a 9 hour flight.

Flew Virgin premier plus from Heathrow to Miami 23/03/14 and really not looking forward to the flight home. Its not a bad service its just not as good as you would be lead to believe and all other premier plus services I have flown on are better. Western airlines are so far behind middle east and far east versions where you are comfortable and made to feel welcome. Next time on the trip I will fly BA or go indirect to use another European carrier. My inflight entertainment was not even viewable although I was given a DVD player.

Flew with Virgin to Las Vegas. Only good thing I can comment on is the In-Flight Entertainment system - other than that both flights were awful. On the outbound flight we received just two drinks each before the "complimentary bar" was declared closed just a few hours into our ten hour flight. The cabin crew were more interested in discussing what they were going to do in Las Vegas rather than provide any form of customer service and the food was an absolute joke my partner ordered beef stew and received something with three 1.5cm cubes of what I guess was beef and my chicken curry was inedible. The icing on the cake occurred on our return to LGW when we discovered that one of our bags had not been loaded. We did try to complain on numerous occasions and rather than attempt to address any of our issues the cabin crew / Virgin staff simply handed me a piece of paper titled "Any Concerns?" - by the end of our holiday we had collected three of these. To date Virgin have not responded to any of our complaints about the poor service quality of food or delayed baggage.