notzac's Velocity blog

Check In

• Attempted check-in on iPhone, colossal fail. Going to virginblue.com.au redirects to m-test.virginblue.internal, no great surprise that I can't access that. What the..?
• Unable to check in from within my Velocity account. Not necessarily a problem, but why not?
• Couldn't check in using Velocity number; system couldn't find me? Not sure why.
• Managed to find the booking using the PNR - offered 6C, but can't actually see anything forward of row 9 on the seat map. Odd. No great surprise that I don't intend changing my seat!
• Go through to print boarding pass; minor side note that boarding pass doesn't neatly fit on one page.
• Can't go through check-in again to see available seat selection - a number of airlines all seem to do this and I can't understand why.

Personal opinion is that OLCI needs some UI polish, however it did give me what I was after (a decent seat and a bit of paper that lets me on the plane) without too much fuss.

At the airport

Not having timed things very well, I didn't have much time to enjoy The Lounge at MEL. Still, some things I noted:

• The staff in the lounge are head, shoulders and upper body above the staff at the QP. It's almost as if they enjoy being there..!
• The food selection is minimal, though compares reasonably to the QP. A couple different dips, cheese, crackers and the makings of sandwiches.
• The wines are a little pedestrian - this was a bit of a let down. OK, so there's no spirits - at least make the wines decent.
• The shower suites don't have those stupid rainfall shower heads that they have in the QP, so you can actually get in a decent shower.
• Unfortunately, the pool table was still being repaired - so I couldn't have a game (not that I had time in any case!)

Some photos of the MEL lounge:







DJ351 MEL/BNE
Equipment: 73G
Seat: 6C
Timeliness: dep. 20 mins late, arr. 10 mins late.

First impressions:

• The Y+ seats look just a bit ordinary. For the dollars being charged, I would definitely want to be sitting in a nicer hard product..
• Overhead bin space is really at a premium - I guess this is what happens when you charge for checked bags.
• Seat pitch for my seat (6C) was probably the same as what I'm used to with QF - i.e., nothing to write home about.
• The DJ seats don't have headrest "wings"! Slight disappointment - one of those things you don't realise you miss until it's not there.

Could have dealt without my seatmate -- really quite offensive couple; the guy in 6B was incapable of staying within the bounds of his own seat (he wasn't a POS, just the sort that feel the need to "spread out"). Not DJ's fault by any means, but it seriously hampered my enjoyment of the flight.

Service was polite and professional, however the cabin crew were v officious when it came to top of descent: they announced that all electronic devices needed to be put away, so I packed up my laptop and stood up to put it in the OHB -- and was immediately told to sit down again. I bit my tongue as it wasn't worth saying anything about, but their sense of timing could have been better..

One thing I really didn't get - the flight was deplaned on to the tarmac. What the? This from a "non-LCC" at a major airport? It did, however, give me a nice photo-op -- I managed to get quite a nice shot before getting yelled at:



Return flight up next..