4 Airlines, 3 Cities, 2 Wonders (USA on SQ, VS, VX and B6)

[ycp81]

Slightly over a month after my trip to Kathmandu, it was time for another trip, a 12-days whirlwind trip to USA with my partner! It is been a long while since I went for a holiday that stretched for more than a week. For this trip, I covered the cities of New York, Las Vegas and San Francisco, as well as visited the natural wonders of Niagara Falls and Grand Canyon. 4 airlines were flown, namely Singapore Airlines, Virgin Atlantic, Virgin America and Jetblue, with flights on both Business and Economy. Tickets were a mixture of redemption and paid. It was quite a task to put the itinerary together and the final result is below.




The first 2 sectors were on a Virgin Atlantic ticket as they offered one of the cheapest one-way ticket to New York and allows 100% Krisflyer/Elite miles accrual too, with the SIN-LHR leg on SQ (VS code-shared) and LHR-JFK leg on VS. Transfer in London was only a short 1hr40min with no terminal transfer needed. However as the first sector was on a Virgin-issued ticket, I was unable to perform seat-selection or online check-in for the SQ flight. Check-in for the SQ flight could only be processed at the airport Terminal 3. Luckily the flight was rather empty today for the leg up to London and we could snatch an entire row of 3-seaters each! Our bags were tagged up to JFK and boarding passes of both SQ and the connecting VS flight were issued. Seats on VS were already prior-selected via VS's website. Cool! VS boarding pass on SQ stock!




This morning, we would be departing from Gate A13.




Due to low loads, a B773ER was scheduled instead of the usual A380. 9V-SWG would be flying us to London.




06 March 2013
Singapore Airlines
SQ 308 (Code-shared VS7318)
Singapore (SIN) - London Heathrow (LHR)
B777-300ER
9V-SWG
Economy Class

Boarding was just starting when we cleared security at the gate. Was greeted by name by a very cheerful set of crew (if the flight was so empty, I would be cheerful too!). Good start here. My seat was towards the rear of the mid-economy cabin.


Welcome aboard!




View from my seat.




Boarding in progress.




Boarding was completed rather swiftly and hot towels were distributed. Flight time was estimated to be 13h20m. Doors were closed and we pushed back on time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYbg1H2mG14


We only had a short taxi to Rwy02L.




Taxi to runway.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toyF-Dx0UO8


And takeoff from Rwy02L, bound for London Heathrow.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVwPrUaPJc8


After seat belt signs were turned off, service started with distribution of headsets and "Givenchy" amenity kits, followed by menus.

Economy amenity kit with a toothbrush set and a pair of socks.




Stuff in the seat pocket.




Menu, with a rather nice cover.




Lets see what's on offer for breakfast and midflight snacks.

[ycp81]

Beverages menu. Looks like SQ have decided to list down all available soft drinks as well as all the various teas. Makes the beverage selection much more impressive.




Selection of juices an water was first offered before the start of the breakfast service. I had an orange juice and started on my first movie, "Pitch Perfect".




Flying over city of Kuala Lumpur less than 30min after takeoff.




Spot the Twin Towers!




Another view over Malaysia.




Breakfast was serve starting from the front of the cabin. When reaching my row, the crew were running out of the scrambled egg choice, but we were going to choose local carrot-cake anyway. According to the very engaging, friendly and casual Leading Stewardess (LSS) serving my aisle, the other non-asian passengers were not too "adventurous" with trying a different cuisine, especially "Carrot-cake" for breakfast, which sounded more like dessert to them. She also promised us that we would love them and that all the crew were so happy that carrot-cake was one of the breakfast choices!

A very substantial breakfast tray. Other than the main, the tray also consisted of fruits, warm roll with butter and marmalade, muffin and cornflakes. I had an orange juice and tea to go along.




Cut fruits and almond muffin.




Singapore Fried Carrot Cake. True to the LSS's words, it was delicious! One of the better breakfast dishes I had on a plane. However it might not suit the western palette as it was a tad spicy, but definitely a very Singaporean dish.




Rumblers cornflakes with milk. Cornflakes are only available on London flights. On other breakfast flights, one would normally get a yoghurt.




Visit to the lav.




Toothbrush sets and combs were available in the amenity drawer.




View of the rear economy cabin. Quite a number of passengers had a 3-seater row to themselves and were dozing away on their own make-shift beds.

[ycp81]

Approaching India.




Over the Indian soil.




The really great LSS, on seeing that we were watching movies, handed us a set of snacks each from the galley behind and told us to enjoy the snacks with the movie. I was totally impressed with her service!! The snacks were potato chips, chocolate chip cookies and a Toblerone chocolate bar.




One of the perks of flying in the day: Wonderful views out the window! Here, we are flying over snow-capped mountains in Afghanistan, approximately halfway through the flight.






At this point, the second meal was served, about 7hrs into the flight. First, was full bar service was offered, where I had a Campari soda.




Was given many packets of peanuts by a lovely stewardess as well.




Lunch was then served. The really great LSS is the one at the right.




What's for lunch? 3 choices were offered!




My meal tray, which was again loaded with food. The main was overflowing from the casserole! Had a white wine with the meal.




Seafood penne pasta salad for starter, which was still half frozen.




Pork "Piccata Milanese" with pasta. The biggest chunk of meat I ever had in economy class! And rather delicious as well.

[ycp81]

Another choice of Fish masala wih spiced ladyfinger and basmati rice. Tasted like the authentic Singaporean fish-head curry (minus the fish head). Great main as well! It was been quite a while since I had such good food on SQ in economy! I was so full with the meal that I saved the cheese and crackers for later.




Panna cotta dessert. Not too bad but would have preferred an ice-cream.




This time round, service was conducted from rear to front.




During lunch, we encountered some light turbulence somewhere over Iran. As usual, seat belt signs were turned off and hot beverage service was suspended. However no more of the annoying "Please return to your seat" announcements, which is a good thing as the pilots on this particular flight were so trigger-happy with the signs, illuminating the seat belt signs at least 6-7 times (excluding takeoff/landing) throughout the entire flight, with barely slight bumps encountered at each time. Because of this, the crew could not serve coffee/tea after the meal service but the LSS took our hot beverage orders during tray collection and promised to return with the drinks after the signs were switched off. Guess they were also annoyed with the signs on for such a long period of time with barely any bumps.




Finally the signs were turned off about 30min after trays were collected and the crew came out with the hot beverages. My requested green tea was delivered promptly.




Cloudy skies below.




Forward economy cabin.



My economy "bed", where I took a couple of hours' nap after finishing a second movie. Seat comfort was average, leg room not too fantastic, but with an empty seat beside, it was rather bearable.




Somewhere over Eastern Europe.




Looks cold down there.




2hrs prior to landing, sandwiches were offered with a choice of vegetarian or non-vegetarian. I had the non-vege option, which was a soft roll with beef pastrami. The vege option was a coleslaw sandwich that I did not try. Throughout the flight, drinks were offered hourly and crew were reactive to call-bells.




Having my sandwich with the villains of "Wreck it Ralph".

[ycp81]

Just passing Berlin and not too far from destination.




Cloudy skies over Germany to Netherlands.




Crossing the English Channel soon.




We started descending shortly after leaving Netherlands. As usual, headsets are collected and cabin prepared for landing. Approaching the coast of England.




Gloomy skies over London as usual...




Surprisingly, there was no hold for landing and we approached Heathrow from the west. Guess it was not the peak hour for traffic at Heathrow. Very smooth landing on Rwy09L, and you could hear the new announcements that mobile phones can be used after landing!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLfAJioMz_s


Passing a fellow B773ER from Air New Zealand while taxiing to Terminal 3.




And another B773ER from TAM Brazil.




Parked at the gate. Chocks on 20min earlier than scheduled.




Disembarking.




View of SWG that flew me to LHR. Note that we were parked at an A380 gate. And only one aerobridge was in use.




Verdict on the first flight of my trip? This is definitely one of my best, if not the best, experience of flying economy on SQ or any airline! Catering was very substantial and much better than usual (wonder if this is a London "high-yield" flight thingy), service was good to excellent depending on the crew but the LSS serving my aisle is definitely superb, IFE was acceptable (well, at least better selections than my SQ flight last year) and seats comfortable though the rather empty flight played a big part. A very comfortable flight indeed on SQ!


After disembarkation, we were off to Transfer to board our next flight. As Virgin would be departing from the same Terminal and there were not many transfer passengers at this time of the day (guess we were the only transfer pax on the SQ flight), the line for security was almost non-existent and it made the whole transfer process rather swift. Much easier than what I had feared earlier (hey, it is Heathrow afterall).

Flight information board. Not many departures at this time of the day. The main departure bank would be during the late evening.




Transit at Heathrow was not too bad. Browsed through some shops, had a sandwich and it was soon time for boarding for the next flight. in fact, my itinerary had a slightly shorter transit time and total flight time than flying on the direct SQ26! Also the day flights made the journey much less tiring than usual.

[CarbonMan]

Wow, ycp81, that looks like a very aggressive 11-day RtW itinerary!

[yflyer]

Great TR!

That Fried Carrot Cake looks delicious! I recall having that dish once before as well, and it tasted really good. Agree that it may not be to Western tastes though.

The mountain scenery over Afghanistan is also quite awe-inspiring. On these long daylight flights, I can spend a long time just staring out the window at the views.

[milehighj]

Thanks for the TR.

A day-trip to BUF the morning after SIN-LHR-JFK in Y...

Hats off to you. Most us here would still be comatose from the needed valium...

[9V-SIA]

Enjoying this TR.

It's been a while since I had carrot cake on board. One of my favourite choices.

The SQ308 at 9am used to be my favourite flight to London as it was on the 77W.

Now I have to take SQ306 at 110am

Hope it reverts permanently

[jbflyer]

Thanks for the great TR!

The first 2 sectors were on a Virgin Atlantic ticket as they offered one of the cheapest one-way ticket to New York and allows 100% Krisflyer/Elite miles accrual too, with the SIN-LHR leg on SQ (VS code-shared) and LHR-JFK leg on VS. Transfer in London was only a short 1hr40min with no terminal transfer needed.

Do you see those miles in your account?
I was on same route last Nov. Only miles of SQ flight credited into my KF account, nothing from VS flight until now.

BTW, how did you book the VS ticket? I cannot get any flight out of SIN by using VS website.

[ycp81]

Thanks for the great TR!


Do you see those miles in your account?
I was on same route last Nov. Only miles of SQ flight credited into my KF account, nothing from VS flight until now.

BTW, how did you book the VS ticket? I cannot get any flight out of SIN by using VS website.

Yep, the miles from the VS flight was credited within 2 days after the VS flight, including Elite miles.

The flight was booked via an agent website, www.cheaptickets.sg and the booking class on VS was Class 'M', with the corresponding booking class on the SQ flight on Class 'L'. Both eligible for 100% miles.

Nope, the flights could not be booked on VS's website.

[ycp81]

Now for the continuation of the journey to New York. As mentioned earlier, I would be transiting at London Heathrow for my onward Virgin Atlantic flight, which was not too bad an experience. During the transit, we had also went to the VS transfer desk to ensure that our bags would be transferred onto the VS flight. The agent also took our SQ-issued boarding passes and re-issued new ones on VS stock. Our earlier allocated seats were not changed, not that I would want them to be changed for a good reason to be revealed later.

My "virgin" Virgin boarding pass for my "virgin" Virgin Atlantic flight! (Sorry, can't help it...)




Proceeded to the gate about 40min prior to departure time. Our departure gate was quite a long trek at Gate 13 but it is definitely not the furthest gate at Heathrow. Our almost brand new Virgin A330-300 was already prepared for the flight to the Big Apple.




Today, the flight would be operated by the aptly named G-VNYC "Uptown Girl"!!




Head-on view of "Uptown Girl".




06 March 2013
Virgin Atlantic
VS 9 (Code-shared SQ 2509)
London Heathrow (LHR) - New York John F Kennedy (JFK)
A330-300
G-VNYC
Economy Class

Boarding has long commenced when we reached the gate 30min prior to departure. Boy, does Virgin board their flight early! This flight was also code-shared with SQ but I seriously doubt there would be any SQ-ticketed passengers. There was a random secondary screening (what is new for US-bound flights) which I was so luckily picked for. No worries as it was swift and the security personnel were polite.

Heathrow's "Boarding" really means boarding, unlike some other airport...




Boarded the aircraft and was greeted by a crew at the door. Stepped into the aircraft and both of us went "Oooooo". The first sight that we saw upon stepping into this A330 was the really funky Upper Class bar and a model-like flight attendant concocting cocktails at the bar for Upper Class passengers. A range of newspapers were laid out on the bar counter and us lowly Economy passengers were also invited to grab a copy. However that is where the awesomeness ends as we turned right into Economy, first passing through Premium Economy, which was less ooomph but still way better than normal economy.

Reached my seat at 56K, which was an extra legroom seat! Hence the reason why I would not want my seat to be changed. On VS's A333, seats 50-56 A/C and H/K are designated as extra legroom seats with a seat pitch of 34", compared to the normal 31". These seats could be purchased for an additional USD50 per person. However, not sure whether it was a system glitch or due to my booking class, I was able to secure seats 56A/B or H/K (but not 50-55) during online seat selection, and thus immediately reserved 56H/K. Passengers seated in the normal seats would only be allowed to occupy the extra legroom seats by paying the cabin crew.

"Warning" on the headrest. Basically, do not sit on this seat unless allocated or paid for.




My 34" seat pitch, making it a more comfortable economy flight. A red blanket was already placed on the seat. However Virgin has discontinued with the economy amenity kits on day flights since a few months back. However they would still be available on overnight flights. The IFE in Economy is fully touch-screen, with no handsets available. However the screen is responsive and the lack of handsets does not bother unless one is to play games, which then may be a bit tiring to the arms.




Stuff in the seat pocket. Not much of an inflight magazine for "Vera". More of an entertainment magazine and IFE guide. This aircraft is also equipped with inflight mobile phone usage capability. Not sure about the charges but it was stated as roaming rates.




Passengers were still trickling into the cabin. Today, it seemed that the only "hot" flight attendant would be in Upper Class. None of the crew in Economy Class today resembled the flight attendants in the Virgin advertisements, haha. Well, not too concerned as long as the service is acceptable.




The cabin lights would have this cool purplish tint throughout the entire flight. Boarding music was playing new released pop songs.




Cartoon safety card.




Hmm, this card accidentally fell into my bag...

[vincent0720]

Awesome report! Looking forward to your following journey

[Desert Traveller]

[...] The IFE in Economy is fully touch-screen, with no handsets available. However the screen is responsive and the lack of handsets does not bother unless one is to play games, which then may be a bit tiring to the arms. [...]

Maybe it's just me, but I find the whole concept of having touchscreen IFE not very well thought out. The obvious issue with fingerprints but also having to press against the seat. With an unresponsive screen, it could be rather annoying for the person in front. Or someone trying to play a game...

[zilchster]

Thanks for the trip report.