Traveling Virgin Atlantic Economy Class? Avoid These Aircraft!

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Towards the end of January I wrote about the new Airbus A330-200 aircraft Virgin Atlantic has brought into its fleet and, at the time, I focused my thoughts on the lack of a Premium Economy cabin and the different Business Class cabin that the aircraft currently have. I should have looked closer at the Economy Class cabin.

Virgin Atlantic has taken delivery of four Airbus A330-200 aircraft which used to belong to airBerlin. They’ve been brought in to cover while a number of Virgin’s Dreamliner’s have their troublesome Rolls Royce engines attended to.

Virgin needs these aircraft right away so it doesn’t have time to refit them with traditional Virgin Atlantic cabins and that’s both a good and a bad thing.

The good news is that the Business Class cabin should be noticeably better than the regular Upper Class cabin (although its smaller) while the bad news is that there isn’t a Premium Economy option (although one will be fitted at some point) and the Economy Class cabin is an abomination.

If you want more news about the Business Class cabin you’ll find it HERE and if you want more news on the truly horrible Economy Class offering keep reading.

Virgin Atlantic’s New A330-200 Economy Class

This is the seat plan of the airBerlin A330-200 aircraft and it looks pretty innocuous:

The section I’ve highlighted at the front are the six rows of seats that airBerlin designated as XL seats and, as I assume Virgin Atlantic hasn’t had time to do much with them, this is the only section of Economy Class that you should look to sit.

In these rows the seats are approximately 17.5″ wide (normal for a lot of regular Economy Class cabins) but have a fantastic amount of leg room for an Economy Class cabin – 36″.

If this is where you find yourself you’ve done ok.

However…..

You’d struggle to come up with enough money to tempt me to sit anywhere else in the Economy Class cabin.

While the rest of the Economy Class cabin also offers seats with ~17.5″ of seat width the seat pitch (leg room) is an abysmal 30″.

That’s what you get on short-haul European flights and less than you’ll get on most US domestic Economy Class flights.

Air Canada’s low-cost sister airline Air Canada Rouge (the naming meeting wasn’t a long one!) flys aircraft as bad as these on its Vancouver – Gatwick route and, when writing about that airline, I commented that “it wouldn’t surprise me if, for some people, it would be medically inadvisable to fly in such cramped conditions“.

I really cannot emphasise enough just how little leg room these Virgin Atlantic planes offer in regular Economy Class….and these are aircraft that Virgin will be flying on routes of over 10 hours!

What Routes Offer These Aircraft

Originally these aircraft were scheduled to fly through the end of May 2018 but, per a recent schedule change (HT: airline route) Virgin Atlantic is now planning to offer these aircraft into late October 2018 (and this may get extended further).

These are the routes that will offer the aircraft to avoid:

• London Gatwick – Antigua from 15 May 2018 (3x/week)
• London Gatwick – Barbados from 15 May 2018 (Daily)
• London Gatwick – St. Lucia – Grenada from 18 May 2018 (2x/week)
  
• London Gatwick – St. Lucia – Tobago from 20 may 2018 (2x/week)
  
• Manchester – Atlanta from 02 March 2018 (7x/week – going to 6x/week from 30 May)
• Manchester – Barbados from 17 May 2018 (2x/week)
• Manchester – Boston from 23 MAY 2018 (2x/week)
• Manchester – New York JFK from 01 March 2018 – 14 May 2018 (7x/week)
• Manchester – San Francisco from 22 May 2018 (3x week)

I can only begin to imagine how uncomfortable I would be on a flight as long as Manchester – San Francisco if I was squeezed into a row that only offered 30″ of seat pitch.

How To Spot These Aircraft

On some of the routes mentioned above the only aircraft Virgin will be offering is the new A330-200 while on others there may be a choice.

Right now if a Virgin Atlantic aircraft doesn’t have a Premium Economy Class cabin it will be the A330-200 to avoid….but this could become an unreliable test if/when Virgin starts fitting Premium Economy cabin to these cattle transporters.

We know that Virgin won’t be altering the airBerlin Business Class cabin so, if you want to have a chance to avoid the cramped Economy Class conditions, avoid aircraft whose Business Class cabin looks like this:

If you’re looking for a reasonable Business Class experience this cabin should be fine but it’s indicative of a truly terrible Economy Class cabin just a few feet further back.

Bottom Line

If it’s a choice of this Economy Class cabin or an Economy Class cabin on any other non-charter airline then the rule is simple – go with anything other than the Virgin Atlantic Economy Class cabin.

Even if the alternative is slightly more expensive just pay the difference and take my word for the fact that, if you are of at least regular size, you’ll thank me that you did.

Seriously…I’m not joking here. 30″ of seat pitch is something that domestic flyers in the US are fighting back against so how do you think these seats are going to be received on long-haul routes?