NEW YORK CITY BOY: PART TWO
Written by James Ward
Part One is here.
The VS045 flight from London Heathrow to New York JFK carried 371 passengers (including 17 crew) and was piloted by a man called Antony. I missed his surname. I suppose I could email to find out, or I could just make something up. I shall do the latter. Captain Antony Andthejohnsons.
I settled into my seat. It had lots of buttons:
The plane took off. I thought it was probably quite unlikely that the whole thing was a joke by this stage.
I looked out of the window. There were clouds:
The food was good. To start with, I had a salmon and avocado salad:
Look, the salt and pepper pots are shaped like little chubby planes. The salad was followed lamb with minted new potatoes, green beans and carrots:
I skippped desert, and went for cheese and biscuits with a glass of port:
Then I watched Sex & Drugs & Rock ‘n’ Roll, the Ian Dury biopic. It was good, Andy Serkis was excellent. I also watched Lizzie & Sarah, which wasn’t very good. By this time, I was beginning to feel a bit tired and fancied a bit of a nap. I pressed a button on the seat and the whole thing slowly flipped over, transforming into a completely flat bed. It was quite magical.
And then we landed:
JAMES WARD: I LIKE BORING THINGS 
How I love photographs of food and films of cloud. I no longer view the absence of the subject of this article from the article as any kind of fault. Thank you James, that was lovely.
Thank you. There is still more to come.
This would appear to be a seat in Upper/Business/whatever, I’m not actually paying for it Class. I thought in the original blurb it was Super Economy. How hence the upgrade?
I think it was Premium Economy going out, Upper Class coming back. I’m not sure of the difference. I normally fly Ryanair.
I’m pretty sure you would know the difference if you saw it. Economy Plus doesn’t have flat bedseat, only slightly larger normal seats with a bit (but not much) more room. And slightly better food, etc. The Not Paying For It Yourself Class is several times more expensive as well.
I recently went to NYC by Virgin with a baby in Regular Economy and it wasn’t too bad. We had to have the bulkhead seats because they hang the cot thing on the wall in front of you. Even though I am a titch the extra space and legroom was relative luxury. If you have to fly long distance and pay for it yourself in the future I would recommend if you can paying a bit extra to take a baby and get the good seats. (You may be able to pay for an upgrade to the bulkhead without a baby, which might also work.)
I am available to talk about this at conferences etc.
Hmmm, this might just be all the encouragement I need to steal a baby should the opportunity ever present itself again.
Oh, I love photographs of plane food so thanks for this! Can’t wait for the rest! :)
There was recently an unintentionally hilarious article in Birmingham Post where the resident Food Critic tried to do an article comparing and contrasting Economy and Upper food on a long-haul flight. He had an Economy ticket and then tried to blag an upgrade so he could review the Upper Class food. They told him to shove it up his brace position and he wrote a snarky review.