Flight review of Virgin Atlantic Premium Economy on A330 neo.
Full text review here: www.businesstr...
- [Presenter] This is a review of Virgin Atlantic's A330neo Aircraft, in Premium Economy from London Heathrow to New York JFK. Virgin is currently the only UK airline using the Neo option, which offers an 11% improvement in fuel efficiency over the A330-300s. Boarding was a fairly smooth process. The overhead bins were actually very spacious with plenty of room for a cabin bag, handbag, and coat, and other passenger items, so no issues fighting for luggage space. We had the safety demonstration with a short video, and I appreciated that Virgin had portrayed a female captain in their in-flight safety cartoon demonstration. So the Premium Economy cabin features 46 seats configured in a 2, 3, 2 layout. I was in seat 21A, which was a window seat at the front of the cabin, which benefits from extra legroom. The look of the seats is quite premium with a maroon, fake leather covering, but there's flashes of the brand's cherry red color in the stitching, which was a nice touch. Faux leather material is actually around 1.5 kilograms lighter per every double seat. It also saves around 3,000 cows across the fleet, so that's a nice sustainable element. Overall, the seat was spacious and comfortable. Dimensions-wise, it's 18.5 inches in width, which is about half an inch wider than Economy, and up to 38 inches in pitch, compared to 31 inches in Economy. And again, being in the front of the cabin does mean that you get some extra legroom, and although there's no TV in front of you, which we'll get onto in a bit. Though, down the side of the seat there is a headphone jack and a small storage pouch for headphones or a book, or a magazine, and a USB port, although they're not particularly easy to access, there's also buttons where you can control your personal reading light, activate the flight attendant call button, and plug socket, and there are also buttons to adjust your seat position with three main functions to recline, extend the leg rest, and release the footrest, which you still need to do manually. The wireless charging port is a very cool feature available in Premium and Upper Class. It worked immediately after takeoff, and genuinely worked. It wasn't the fastest, but it worked consistently. The only problem is that there's only really enough space for one phone, and so it can be a bit awkward when you're sharing the space with a stranger to decide whose turn it is to charge, although, there are other outlets available. So the tray table is very well designed. It's easy to get in and out. There's a sort of one-push mechanism that pops it out easily, and then it folds over smoothly and it can be adjusted if you push it further or closer to you. It's also a fairly good size. I was able to fit my laptop on it and work fairly comfortably. It wasn't the most sturdy, but it did the trick and it was easy to get out and put away, which was the main thing. One problem with the seat being at the front of the cabin is that it is very close to the galley and the bathroom and there was lots of traffic during the flight from the crew and passengers, and you could hear everything that was going on. It was just a bit disrupting. However, there were snacks in the galley if you fancied it throughout the flight. So a pillow and a blanket are provided in the seat on arrival. The pillow was extremely basic with a sort of flimsy netting material that wasn't very appealing. The fleece blanket was a bit more premium in a sort of rich purple, although I dunno why this wasn't bright red, but it was soft and warm, so that was nice. But as this was a day flight, there were no amenity kits provided. So you do also get a fairly basic headset, which is wrapped in an envelope to collect change for charity, although, easy to mistake it for packaging and just rip it off. Also, being in the front seat meant that there's no wall-mounted or seat-back-mounted TV screen. So these are stored just in the central division, and again, are fairly easy to operate and kind of pull up and adjust. But these are kind of in the way if you then want to get out of your seat, which is a bit annoying. But the touchscreen worked effectively and there was a good selection of IFE options from Hollywood, Nollywood, Bollywood, Lollywood, and the IFE system is also Bluetooth enabled to connect your own headphones. And there's also TV shows and audio and game options, and a fairly decent 13.3-inch touchscreen display. Menus were brought round before we took off. There was three options for the Main, which included a Chicken Casserole, Shepherd's Pie, and a Thai Green Curry. And then later on, there was an afternoon tea service. The drinks menu was a little bit sparse. There was only two wine options, French Sauvignon Blanc, and Argentinian Malbec, but there was a ran
30 сен 2024
