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Flight Check: The cloud has a silver lining
Stranded in Sydney a couple of weeks ago, The Mole found a silver lining in the ash cloud when he was upgraded to Virgin Australia’s new A330 business class on the near five hour flight to Perth.
The launch of the Business Class cabin on the coast-to-coast route comes at a time when rival Qantas is being pelted in several forums for dumbing down its product.
Complaints about Qantas have a common thread: poor food onboard and indifferent cabin crew who appear to have lost faith with the direction of the company.
The Mole, after a couple of recent Qantas flights (in economy) was a bit underwhelmed with the food served up. If QF food guru Neil Perry had produced something similar on Masterchef he would have been booted off the show.
So how good are Virgin Australia’s new premium products, The Lounge and Business Class on the A330.
Not unexpectedly, it is served up with Virgin pizzaz and plenty of polish.
The 27 business class seats are, apart from the front row, configured in a 2-3-2 configuration, with each offering about 62-inch (155-cms) seat pitch, inflight entertainment on a 10.6-inch in-seat screen, and a full meal service.
There are now three services a day in each east-west direction offering the new Business Class product.
On my flight, there was a choice between two starters, followed by a salad and a choice of fillet of beef, Basque-style barramundi or a mushroom vegetarian dish. Cheese and desserts follow.
Wines were predominantly South Australia, plus a Lanson Gold Label Brut champagne and a Juniper Estate Margaret River cane cut Riesling.
On morning flights until 09.30am a classic hot breakfast is served with a pancake option.
Another perk: there is direct Terminal 2 kerbside lounge access, optional valet parking, a private reception desk, flight check-in and a dedicated security screening point.
Business Class checked baggage allowance is 69kg per person.
And in case you think it’s all salmon and champagne for TravelMole, we travelled to Sydney in economy class on the A330 (seating configured 2-4-2) and our view of the new coast-to-coast product in all classes is very positive.
Passengers are being offered a quality product that matches that seen on international routes of similar length – and that, surely, is not before time.
by Ian Jarrett
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