Hong Kong to London — Virgin Atlantic (PART 2)

Another VERY long review from me. This time is the return leg and there are a good few hundred words more than the last review!

Hong Kong to London – 26 September
Virgin Atlantic

After 5 days in Hong Kong, it was already time to pack up and head to the airport for our late return flight to London. I wasn’t quite ready to leave though, having only just managed to get over the jetlag and the 7 hour difference between Hong Kong and the UK.

Anyway, we were picked up by coach at around 8.00pm and driven to the airport in good time, getting there for about 8.45pm. With the flight at 11.25pm, we had plenty of time to check in and buy a few bits of tat to take home to family and friends. We had to walk from where we were dropped off – door A – along to door C. As we walked along to the entrance, a Thai Airways 777-300 departed and roared loudly as it climbed above us. I wished to be on that plane, knowing that in 2 hours, I’d be in Bangkok.

Entering the terminal, I was amazed by how bright it was, how much space there was and how clear everything was. And surprisingly, it just didn’t seem very busy, so moving around here was so much easier than the hole, which is Heathrow. Zone F was being used by Virgin Atlantic for check-in, so we made our way there. A red tape had been used to set up a queuing system for check-in but it wasn’t necessary. Of the eight or so desks being used by the airline, only a couple were being used and there wasn’t the long queue of passengers I was expecting. A friendly lady dressed in Virgin Atlantic uniform approached us and confirmed that we were flying with Virgin to London. She was happy, her English was perfect and she chatted as she escorted us to her check-in desk, where she quickly checked in our baggage and weighed our hand baggage. Looking on her computer, she told us our seat numbers. They were the same ones as chosen on the Internet a good few weeks before – 59A and 59C, bearing in mind that Virgin Atlantic doesn’t have B seats on the A340. She printed off our boarding cards and our baggage disappeared down the belt. She told us to be at gate 36 no more than 20 minutes before departure and to have a nice flight. We were on our way. Seconds later, she was back in position, greeting more passengers and escorting them to check. Considering Virgin Atlantic has just two flights into/out of Hong Kong each day, I was surprised to see dedicated check-in desks for the airline and even Virgin Atlantic ground staff. I was expecting the flight to be handled by a ground handling company.

We grabbed a bite to eat at one of the fast food restaurants before security and then made our way to the departures area, with our passports and boarding cards in hand. Before reaching security, we had to get yet another stamp in the passport and this involved joining a very small queue, which moved very quickly. After that, we were in another small queue for security and were quickly processed without a problem.

My first impression of the departure lounge was a good one. Not rows and rows of hard seats, but instead, more relaxing orange armchairs, which were sure not to do your back in. And there were signs everywhere to ensure that every passenger could negotiate their way around the airport, whether they wanted to get to the gate or to the airport’s very comfortable smoking area.

And very unlike Heathrow, the airport had windows overlooking the apron throughout, so if you got bored with shopping at the various stores available (some cheap, some expensive), you could sit and stare out of the windows for hours on end.

Time in the airport had really flown by and before we knew it, our flight status was “Boarding Soon” on the monitors. It was time to make our way to the gate – not a long walk. Instead, a quick trip on the airport’s underground train which took us to where we needed to be. Upon arrival at the gate, there weren’t too many people around. There were a few transfer passengers who wore a little sticker identifying them. Apart from that, it was quite empty.

Time ticked by and for quite some time, the flight was still “Boarding Soon”. We were due to depart at 11.25pm and only at 11.00pm did anything start to happen. For a start, the crew climbed on board the aircraft. Judging by the fact that they seemed to all have the distinctive green pink duty free bags in hand, I’m guessing they had been on some sort of shopping spree and hadn’t really watched the clock. The same smart members of Virgin Atlantic staff (about ten of them) who had checked us in earlier appeared at the gate and got us into an orderly queue. The aircraft still wasn’t ready to board, but I had one member of staff tell a passenger that we would start in 5 minutes after being quizzed about the delay. And sure enough, shortly after 11.05pm, this long queue started to move down two channels onto the aircraft; one for Upper Class, Premium Economy and Flying Club Gold Members and the other for those travelling in the very comfortable (at half the price) Economy Class. We walked down the jetty towards the aircraft and that seemed about a mile long. As we reached the end, signs separated the passengers again, so that they boarded through the correct door. But because of some sort of problem with the forward door, a member of staff stood at the end of the jetty and directed everyone through the Economy door of the aircraft. Boarding was a free for all. At Heathrow, we were boarded the sensible way – by row number. Here we just boarded in any order – probably not the most efficient way of filling an aircraft which is already certain to depart late!

Like when we departed Heathrow, two members of staff stood on the door and welcomed the passengers on board and pointed them in the right direction. Being in row 59, we walked to the back of the aircraft and took our seats. Each seat had a blanket and a pillow, too. Headphones and amenity kits had not yet been distributed.

We were welcomed on board about every five minutes by the crew and asked to stow hand luggage, but this was a bit of a problem. With the exception of the odd seat here and there, this flight was totally full and it may have just been my imagination, but every passenger who climbed aboard seemed to have well and truly exceeded the weight and dimension restrictions of hand baggage, so overhead lockers were already full of bulky suitcases when only half the passengers were on board. This is something that disappointed me. At the gate was a device used to measure the size of hand baggage. Maybe the ground staff should have used it. To my delight, some idiot had thrown a suitcase on top of my bag and shopping in the overhead locker, which, I might add, weighed about 4kg combined.

Time pressed on and at about midnight, the Captain came and spoke to us all. He apologised for the delay and explained that there were again, 4 members of staff on the flight deck. He had a good sense of humour and joked about how the airline wanted to see how many people it could fit onto the A340s flight deck. He went on to say that we should be pushing back within 5 minutes, once the flight plans had been finalised and air traffic control had given clearance.

The A340-600 was G-VNAP (I’m told it’s the newest A340 in the fleet) delivered in February 2005. It pushed back shortly after 12.05am, already running 40 minutes late. As we were pushed back our stand and behind an ANA 767-300, the engines started. Within just a couple of minutes, we started our taxi to the runway, by which time it had just started to rain heavily.

From my window I could see two British Airways 747-400s. There were three just a short while earlier, though one had pushed back just a few minutes earlier, bound for London, too. There was also a South African A340-600 taxiing just ahead of us. The taxi was quite slow and we seemed to keep stopping behind other traffic. With lots of Cathay Pacific traffic ahead of us (mainly 747s), it took some time to get to the runway – almost half an hour.

At 12.35am, we taxied onto the runway and straightened up, waiting for a few minutes to allow the previous departure to get out of our way. Full throttle was applied and we started our roll down the runway, taking quite a while to reach a suitable speed, before the nose was raised and the aircraft gently lifted into the air. The cloud was low and it was no time before the aircraft passed through them.

The aircraft wobbled slightly as it continued its climb out of Hong Kong. We then made a right turn. The climb continued for a good few minutes before we encountered the worst turbulence I’ve ever come across. Obviously, it caused a bit of shock amongst some passengers and made a child start crying and screaming, but it was quite good fun. It lasted about 5 minutes and then suddenly stopped.

Upon reaching a suitable altitude, the seatbelt sign went off and passengers were out of their seats in no time, needing the toilet, only to be sent back a few minutes later when we encountered further turbulence. For the following two hours, the seatbelt sign was regularly switched off and on because of sudden winds. Because of the typhoon south of Hong Kong at the time, I’m guessing this was to blame for the interesting weather?

Cabin service was under way with the seatbelt sign on. Drinks were served by a very cheerful Cantonese member of cabin crew who worked her way (alone) through the rear of the economy section of the aircraft. I asked for fruit juice this time as Virgin Cola just didn’t do it for me. On her way back to the galley, she was more than happy to give me another drink upon request. Even though she had to water so many passengers alone, she had a smile upon her face throughout and worked hard to make sure we were all happy.

After the drinks round came the meal service, again being served by the same member of crew. Of all the members of staff on this flight, I only noticed one or two member of staff actually doing anything in the early stages of the trip to London. Not only did she have to explain the three choices of meal to every passenger in two languages, but she also had to offer wine and other drinks. But in so little time, she managed it. I chose Singapore noodles with a mighty big mushroom thrown on top. This was the high standard of catering which I was very familiar with from the otuward trip. The starter was a glass noodle salad and the dessert was a generous serving of carrot cake – again, very nice. We also had a small Toblerone and bread roll on the tray. Meals were washed down with another serving of drinks – this time a range of hot drinks and many varieties of tea.

We seemed to wait quite some time for the trays to be cleared away, but since it was the happy member of staff having to work alone again, I didn’t have a problem. She did seem to be the only person who was going to make this trip enjoyable for us. Everyone else seemed so miserable.

The entertainment was in full swing and passengers could use the V-Port system again to watch any film or programme or listen to any radio station or CD at a time that suited them, being able to stop it, pause it, rewind or forward it using the remote control in the armrest. Priority number one for me was to finish watching Nighty Night (I had started on the outbound). 2 hours later after four episodes of Nighty Night, I still felt very wide awake. The cabin lights were off and the aircraft seemed very quiet, but I just didn’t feel like I could get to sleep. I ended up watching two episodes of the Simpsons and two 50-minute long BBC documentaries; one about a dwarf looking for love and the other about a kid and her relationship with her alcoholic of a mother. By now, I did feel tired. I reclined my seat and donned my very fashionable “forty winks” eye mask and tried hard to get some sleep.

About 10 minutes in to my attempt at getting to sleep, I was disturbed by a lot of commotion and cabin crew running towards the front of the aircraft. It turned out that a Chinese lady was feeling very unwell and was lying on the floor at the emergency exit at the front of the section I was in. The crew made several calls for somebody with any medical knowledge to assist and about half an hour later, it was under control. The lady was still unwell, but we continued our flight to London. The last thing any of us wanted to do was to divert on our already-delayed flight to drop off a sick passenger. Whilst all this went on, the friendly member of crew from earlier was serving a tray of drinks.

I took a toilet break at around the half way stage of this 12 hour and 28 minute (?) flight to London and joined a queue to use one of the two lavatories at the back of the A340. As I stood there, twiddling my thumbs, I noticed a jug or orange juice and a stack of cups, along with cartons of drinking water and a bowl of crackers and cheese and some shortbread. After my toilet break, I returned to my seat with a stash of goodies. Not long after, I was asleep.

I was given a nudge and woke to find the cabin completely lit and breakfast being served. And again, there were three choices of breakfast for this flight. Being a typical Brit, I opted for the greasiest and unhealthiest option, which was very nice. Bacon, scrambled egg, sausage and beans along with a Croissant with butter and jam. We each had a carton of orange juice and were able to choose more drinks from the trolley as it came round.

Once the meal had been eaten and the trays cleared away, the Captain came on and explained that we were about 170 miles away from London and that we should be on the ground about 35 minutes later. Weather in London was said to be typical English Autumn weather and he suggested that we used our imagination to work out what that meant. A few people laughed. He said that in 15 minutes, the seatbelt sign would be switched on as we prepared for landing on the westerly runway at Heathrow – what was to be 27L. So views over London were going to be good… or maybe not. Cloud in London was at just 700ft.

I used the toilet again and had to join a queue and listen to an annoying passenger moaning about how the crew had closed one of the two toilets because it was dirty and “they couldn’t be bothered to clean it”. The queue for the one toilet was about 10-people long and took some time to clear. It was little surprise that when the seatbelt sign did come on, passengers still queued for the toilets behind me.

We were due to arrive at Heathrow Airport at 5.25am, but had been told earlier in the flight to expect a landing on the hour at 6.00am. As we got nearer to Heathrow, the Captain spoke again and said that we should expect to land a little later due to traffic and the need for us to join a holding pattern over London.

We were on final approach for Heathrow and I spotted some fat passenger up front sending a text message and it made me realise how stupid the British can be at times. I was pleased to discover when we dismebarked that he was actually not British. Even so, he was still an idiot. At 6.20am, 55 minutes late, we landed on runway 27L at Heathrow and the brakes could be felt being applied. We came almost to a complete stop very quickly considering the load on this aircraft and made a quick exit, allowing the aircraft behind to land just a few seconds later.

As we taxied to the terminal, the lights came on and the sound of mobile phones being switched on could be heard all over the aircraft, even though the crew had requested that they be turned off.

As taxied onto our stand at Heathrow, the Crew made a very quick announcement welcoming us to London. It was very rushed and so, the Captain made a sarcastic remark over the loudspeaker afterwards. The crew member who had made the announcement made a jokey remark back to him and told passengers that paramedics would be coming aboard the aircraft to assist the unwell passenger before we could disembark. But even with the announcement being made in other languages, too, people leapt out of their seats before we had stopped and with the seatbelt sign still switched on.

The aircraft stopped and the doors were opened and passengers started to leave through one exit. The unwell passenger was being seen to and had many members of crew stood around. Some of these crew members occasionally shouted goodbye over to the passengers. At the door, one member of crew and the inflight beautician said goodbye to the dismarking passengers.

We had a hugely long walk through the terminal and joined a crowd of people in immigration. The immigration part of the airport was so full and it was clear that it was trying to handle too many passengers – much more than it was designed for! So that took about half an hour which was very disappointing. And even when you do get to the front of the queue, the immigration staff are unfriendly. One particular man was rude to me and shouted to “Come through”, so I shouted back at him, explaining that because of the crowds it was physically impossible for me to do that. An email to BAA is currently being written about the state of the arrivals process. I can’t imagine how long it took to get through the airport if you weren’t holding a British or EU passport. The queue was longer and the procedure was much more complex.

So, overall, an excellent set of flights. Virgin Atlantic was fantastic and Hong Kong’s Airport was also very good, putting Heathrow to shame. London Heathrow really has a lot to learn. Maybe before building a new terminal it should have taken a look at existing terminals at the airport and worked on them first!