Virgin 744 Interiors

No set date I’m afraid. Originaly Virgin was going to lease an Etihad A340 to cover some routes from LGW whilst each plane is down for the refit. However this has unfortunately fallen through, and I believe the normal winter re-hash of flights is being looked into to cover one aircraft being down. Virgin well knows that the LGW fleet is tired, and the business routes get the refit priority over the bucket and spade planes. The repaints take something like 3 weeks at the mo whereas a full refit is more like 6-8 weeks plus problems – something difficult to work into the schedule.

I’m sure when the decision is made and communicated to the relevant company employees it will end up on the internet quick enough!

FB

To answer the original question, no the economy cabins of the Gatwick based 744s has not been updated – yet! The aircraft are being repainted one by one this year and from next year (after the jig-around of routes from LGW) each 744 will one at a time have its seating and IFE updated to bring in line with the LHR aircraft.

FB

Any ideas when the IFE / seating upgrades will ommence?

Jon

To answer the original question, no the economy cabins of the Gatwick based 744s has not been updated – yet! The aircraft are being repainted one by one this year and from next year (after the jig-around of routes from LGW) each 744 will one at a time have its seating and IFE updated to bring in line with the LHR aircraft.

FB

I’ve always prefered the layout of BA’s business class. There you still get a proper window seat.

Or indeed a 4 or 5 window seat!

I guess the Upper Class suite wasn’t designed with flying enthusiasts in mind, although in fairness we probably don’t account for a large % of the Business Class travelling public.

I wonder if it would be feasable for the herringbone pattern to face out rather than in.

I remember a recent similar thread to this one, and as I said then I was surprised by the negative comments. From my limited recent experience of VS I have always found their aircraft to be clean, tidy and comfortable.

1L.

Flew on VGAL out of MAN in Feb 2006, The guy in the row in front was gutted when he found out his in flight entertainment system was broken. I thought it was pretty good and the kids loved it!

I don’t particularly like staring at several rows of feet protruding towards the aisle and having a window seat was pointless as the whole unit faces inwards at about 30 degees from forwards and prevents any view out!?

I’ve always said I don’t fancy Virgin’s upper class for that very reason.
I’ve always prefered the layout of BA’s business class. There you still get a proper window seat.

Not having flown either, I cannot qualify my opinion with experience, but if I were to ever fly Business class across the pond, it’d be with BA for the window.
No window means the magic of flight is lost to me.

Virgin interiors

I flew to Newark with Virgin (Upper Class) in Oct 07 and was very disappointed with the new ‘herring-bone’ layout in their A340-600. I don’t particularly like staring at several rows of feet protruding towards the aisle and having a window seat was pointless as the whole unit faces inwards at about 30 degees from forwards and prevents any view out! I paid over four thousand pounds for the return and it simply wasn’t worth it – transatlantic fares are so extortionate wrt other long-haul routes.

Give me a view and a more private booth and I might be willing to go with them again. Does anyone else feel the same?

Having recently done LGW-MCO return on VS 747-400 I can say that the interiors on both the aircraft I flew on are ‘tired’ – one of our group had a broken seat that would not stay upright and the entertainment system was very dated and kept crashing. (G-VXLG & G-VTOP were the 2) Outbound food was fine but the return was poor – which is typical of flights from the USA regardless of airline.

Not sure about their 744’s to be honest.

Just be thankful that its not an Airbus type aircraft though…I flew LHR-LAX-LHR whilst on my way to/from Hawaii with VS back in July, both flights operated A340-600’s. The flight out was in the old config and was really great, but the flight back was in the new config and I didnt like it at all!