Sitting under the ceiling fans at Koshy’s Restaurant, a fixture in this city since 1952, it felt like nothing had changed. Waiters in white uniforms with silver buttons on their tunics attended to elderly customers in pressed shirts. Even the items on the menu seemed like artifacts from another era: vegetable soup, pineapple steak and … Read more
Scott Foxon is a Certifying Engineer with over 12 years of experience in Virgin’s maintenance team – Heathcliff O’Malley The Virgin Atlantic hangar is hidden in a steel ring surrounding Heathrow Airport; buried behind metal fences on the east side of Britain’s largest aviation hub. It effectively takes me a week to get in, through … Read more
Devices must always be on silent when flying business class – British Airways The first time I was upgraded from economy class to business class and offered wine, I asked, “How much is it?” The flight attendant – it was the eighties – looked at me and said, “Oh you Real don’t belong here.” Flying … Read more
Holly Sherwood is the Clubhouse Experience Manager for Virgin Atlantic – Heathcliff O’Malley It’s just after 1pm on a wintry Friday afternoon and the Virgin Atlantic lounge (officially the ‘Virgin Clubhouse’) at Heathrow Airport’s Terminal 3 is in the grip of the lunch rush. Platters of gourmet burgers are delivered to tables, cocktails are prepared … Read more
A Virgin Atlantic Airbus A350 – Robert Smith/MI News/NurPhoto/Getty Extremely strong winds high over the Atlantic Ocean pushed commercial flights to near record speeds this weekend, with some passenger planes recording ground speeds of more than 800 miles per hour. Eastbound planes, including a Virgin Atlantic flight from Washington DC to London, landed significantly earlier … Read more
The Turks and Caicos Islands archipelago is home to a beautiful chain of luxury resorts: Gary James The approach to Providenciales Airport is the kind of descent — fraught with a nagging dread that increases by the minute — that could give even more nervous fliers heart palpitations. Why? Because beyond the window, as the … Read more