Virgin America

I haven't talked about my flight home, which might have been the worst flight I've ever experienced between London and Seattle.  It started with Heathrow.  I had checked in online, but chose to get my boarding pass printed at the airport.  Only the machine for some reason insisted on wanting me to scan my green card, but refused to accept it.  So I had to queue up for ages at the customer service desk in order just to print my boarding pass, something I could have done at home the day before.  Then you have to go to yet another machine just to check bags in for the flight - which this time refused to accept my boarding pass when I tried to scan that in.  This is also the first time I've ever had to print my own labels and put them onto my checked baggage and then put that luggage onto the carousel that goes round the back myself - which I think is a disgraceful lack of customer service.  Then the terminal itself was an overcrowded hellhole.  And then things got worse on the flight.  The food was really bad - and didn't seem to match the menu that had been handed out earlier.  I was supposed to get chicken casserole - what I actually got was definitely not casserole.  And I got no sleep on the flight - why do so many people take babies on such a long flight?  And I had all kinds of problems with my entertainment system - which is a nightmare for a 10 hour flight.  Apparently I wasn't the only one, because about halfway through the flight they just turned off the entertainment system for everyone.  Not a lot of happy campers.  As for the premium economy section - there were loads of empty seats.  Which probably meant loads of empty seats in business - but absolutely no suggestion of getting an upgrade.  And I had the misfortune of sitting next to a German guy - who had somehow managed to pre-order his food choices and who was absolutely not going to change seats.  I made the choice to stay where I was by the window, but I think in retrospect that was the wrong decision.  Given the choice between the window seat and an aisle seat with an empty seat next to it, in the future I'll think I'll always take the seat with no one next to me.  So all in all, was thoroughly unimpressed with Virgin America.  They may have their flaws, but I think I'll stick with BA for this route in the future.