The C+Golf team made a second journey to San Francisco enabling a direct comparison of Virgin Atlantic’s Upper Class with BA’s front-of-plane experience – not a completely straight forward task, because Virgin only offers one ‘left turn’ experience (Upper Class) to BA’s two (Club and First). 

 

Your flight announced, it’s briefly back to the reality of the terminal for the walk to the gate, where again smooth priority overtakes the airbridge queue for those turning right. 

 

 

Whisked to our seats in the stretched Jumbo, we enter another world, completely different to BA: it’s here that our conclusion that the choice of airline may ultimately be a matter of personal preference begins to emerge. Upper Class seats are undoubtedly superior in comfort and ‘sleepability’ than BA’s Club World seats, even though the BA product is newer. BA’s current First cabin has been around for a decade or so now, and this shows. Have no doubt, the new Club World seats are plenty comfortable enough, but Upper Class has the edge. And, without doubt, there is more space to sleep in, despite a slightly clumsy process of conversion from seat to bed. So, if the highest degree of comfort and space is your selection criterion, read no further: you are an Upper Class traveller…

 

The feel of the cabin? Completely different from First (where individual window sleeper seat ‘cabins’ face outwards, with couples together for centre-aisle cabins); less different from Club World (2-4-2 configuration running parallel to the cabin interior, allowing side-by-side couples in the centre). Upper Class window seats are all angled inwards, ranked in rows, almost as if in a beehive. Take the back seat of a cabin and the other seats feel relatively discreet, angled away from you, but the further forward your seat, the more you feel stared at by the ranks of seats aft of you on the other side of the plane (most notably on the upper deck: no seats in the middle here, but there are downstairs). Furthermore, although (as with First), couples can share a table to eat, there are no side-by-side seats. Again, ultimately it’s a matter of personal preference. Maybe the best solution for some would be BA for those flights where sleep is relatively optional, and Upper Class if it is more of a necessity. 

 

For the rest, it was very much a score draw: overall, the Upper Class in-flight entertainment system and food were no better and no worse than that offered by BA in either cabin - acceptable, but not state-of-the-art and, at best, on a par with supermarket gastropub, respectively. The Upper Class asparagus risotto tasted good, but it failed on the texture front (isn’t risotto too ambitious for in-flight: an own goal, effectively?). Still, we loved the strawberry and cream roulade, even though its ‘wild berry coulis’ looked and tasted suspiciously identical to the ‘fruit compote’ served with the baked Sussex honey cheesecake. The wine list is the same each way: much though we enjoyed the Cortello 2008 from Estremadura in southern Portugal, BA’s wines in both cabins were superior. But then that would understate the flair of Virgin’s in-cabin bar, copious with (unbilled) Mumm Cordon Rouge throughout the flight, and the refreshing Red Hot Royale long cocktail celebrating the airline’s 25th anniversary.

 

And maybe this brings us to the nub: unless you are flying on points, BA’s First isn’t worth the expense. BA’s Club World and Virgin Atlantic’s Upper Class both offer better value. Try them both, and your personal preferences will lean you towards one or the other. But, if we were pushed, we would have to concede that the personal touches of Upper Class make one wonder if perhaps it is everything that is Richard Branson that makes Virgin feel 25 years young…

 

Details: 

http://www.virginatlantic.com 

Upper Class: £2,793 

 

http://www.ba.com

First: £6,649; Club: £2,793 

 

Fare information based on an enquiry made on 9/8/2009 for a two week LHR-SFO return trip from 9th to 23rd December 2009, on lowest fare basis. 

The C+Golf team conducts its airline reviews on an independent basis and pays for all flights.