Virgin Atlantic A330-900neo Economy Class: A Solid Value

I’m live-blogging my SAS EuroBonus SkyTeam Milion Mile challenge this week. Click here for background and route information.

I cannot help but marvel at buying a $242 ticket to fly across the Atlantic Ocean in 2024 and I am grateful for a very pleasant flight and the chance to spread out on Virgin Atlantic.

Solid Flight On Virgin Atlantic

We boarded on-time—early actually—so I did not even have a chance to check if my “plan” worked beforehand. What was that plan? 

The A330-900neo is laid out 2-4-2 in economy class (great, family-friendly configuration, by the way) and I had reserved a center section aisle and middle seat, with an open middle seat between us. I would have put us both in center section aisles, but Virgin does not allow children to be seated more than one open seat away from adults.

I deliberately chose a seat near the rear of the economy class cabin, figuring it would be among the last to fill up.

Thankfully, the flight was not booked full and we ended up having the row to ourselves!

Folks, that’s huge. I stretched out from one aisle, Augustine stretched out on the other, and I took a very solid four-hour nap (of course made easier after a transcontinental redeye the night before).

I loved the mood lighting the cabin and the staff was great…all cheeky in that British way. Nice IFE selection as well and an easy-to-use touchscreen interface.

There was even a ful dinner served after takeoff, a choice between vegetarian pasta or “fajita chicken” (same chicken dish I had from LA to London when I flew to pay my respects to the late Queen Elizabeth II). It had been a few hours since I had eaten, so I ate the chicken and salad and skipped the bread and dessert.

There may (I think there must have been) a pre-arrival meal, typically yogurt and a croissant, but I slept through it.

We landed to a cold dreary morning in London and followed the purple flight connections sign to make our way to Terminal 2 for our next flight on SAS.

A great flight on Virgin Atlantic: with thanks to Norse Atlantic for forcing Virgin to offer cheap one-way fares and to Upper Class (business class) passengers for “subsidizing” my fare.

I may do a full review at some point, but I’m going to move on now so as not to fall behind on the live blogging.