notzac's Velocity blog

A quick weekend trip to see a friend before he departs permanently for the UK gave me another opportunity to sample the Virgin Blue service. Rather than write two fairly similar posts, I figured I'd condense things in to one post. Here goes:

DJ889 MEL/SYD
Equipment: 73H
Seat: 5D
Timeliness: Early*

After finishing up work on the Friday evening, I Skybus'ed it out to MEL and made a beeline for the lounge. I'm still not convinced of the benefits of having an airline lounge before security - but I guess it's something that was a holdover from the AN days and wouldn't be easy (perhaps impossible..?) to change.

I'd made use of the mobile check-in option for my flight, however the best I could get myself was a crappy window seat in the double-digit rows - so first order of the evening was to get a better seat. Having fronted up to The Lounge service desk, I found that there was a stack of delays due WX in SYD - unasked, the lounge dragon offered me an earlier flight + better seat. Score! The earlier flight was delayed as well, but the rescheduled departure time meant that I was actually leaving earlier than I'd planned. Once inside The Lounge, everything was much the same as the previous visit - the only difference I spotted was that the pool table was back in action. I sorted myself out with food and drink, then settled in for the short wait until my flight.

The flight itself was fine, albeit not using an airbridge-equipped gate at MEL was somewhat annoying. It might be my imagination, but the DEF side of the plane appears to have slightly less legroom than the ABC side. Not enough to make things uncomfortable, but just enough to notice. The service onboard was polite and professional. Premium economy had maybe 3 pax. Noticeably absent was any form of cuteness over the PA - a welcome improvement!

About the only thing I could find to complain about was the shop-a-docket boarding pass issued at The Lounge .. they're too big and the software used to generate them should be able to tell that I am already a Velocity member (there's an advert at the bottom of the docket encouraging all and sundry to join Velocity Rewards).

DJ842 SYD/MEL
Equipment: 73H
Seat: 4C
Timeliness: dep. 15 minutes late, arr. 5 minutes late.

Another mobile check-in, another rubbish seat. Figuring I could get this fixed up at the airport, I jumped on the train and arrived at the domestic terminal around 90 minutes ahead of the departure time. As an aside, I like that the domestic airport station is more or less directly below T2; a much shorter walk as compared to getting from station <-> T3.

Having never seen the inside of the T2 before, I decided to make use of the priority check-in to acquire a better seat and find the location of the lounge. After a v short wait - 1 x decent seat, a "normal" boarding pass (which doesn't appear to have the FQTV details printed on it..? Curious.) and the lounges whereabouts sorted out, I made my way through security and up the steps to the lounge:

Forgive the crappy photo quality; the iPhone camera isn't so crash hot. The SYD lounge is really quite nice - heaps of seating, loads of natural light and quite peaceful. Fairly standard F&B offering - hopefully something that will be "enhanced"..! Still, enough to snack on and the coffee the barista made for me was quite excellent. After a delay of reasons unknown, an announcement was made that boarding had commenced and now was a good time to get moving towards the gate.

The flight back was much like the one on the way up - only this time there was no one in Premium Economy. Product failure much? Again, a refreshing lack of silly PAs and the cabin was always addressed as "Ladies and Gentlemen" ... no "Boys and Girls", which was nice. Also, I was addressed by first name on both sectors - something I don't personally have an issue with, but I know a few people find it a little too personal.

Unsure when the next flights will be - am hoping that the move to Amadeus next weekend will bring preferred seating for status pax, as it's somewhat annoying getting rubbish seats (and knowing that this is something that wouldn't happen on QF as a WP).