A letter from 40,000ft - aboard Virgin Atlantic’s new Dreamliner


Johnny Tucker doesn’t strap in for the inaugural flight of Virgin Atlantic’s latest aircraft — the Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner — he’s too busy whooping it up at 40,000ft with London’s hippest DJs at the decks.


Blueprint

It's a London thing -- flavour of the month, Norf London DJ duo Gorgon City has just left the decks to rapturous applause and now Hackney boys Rudimental take over, complete with trumpet player. The crowd is going wild as they crank out anthemic chart hit after hit. Everyone in the place is jumping up and down in unison, and the floor isn't even juddering -- a good thing really, seeing as we're 40,000ft up in the air on the inaugural flight of the first European-delivered Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner with Virgin Atlantic. It's a Transatlantic thing.

Ever one for doing something a bit different, with an eye to a media chance, Richard Branson has opted to turn this first flight into a full-on, airborne party. What was once the Upper Class bar is now covered in Macs, mixers and Pioneer decks.

This space, normally frequented by a small handful of the 31 guests who have the wallet width to travel Upper Class, is now rammed full of people whooping it up, literally, #flightdecks (it was streamed to the world via the onboard wi-fi).

One DJ set follows another, then a mix-off follows that. The interior of this new jet is supposed to be one of the quietest flying today, but on this day it's got to be the noisiest. The music cranks up, the champagne and cocktails flow, the eight-hour flight passes in the blink of an eye and the onscreen, in-flight entertainment goes unwatched.

The come-down is harsh. Not the landing -- lovely plane, lovely smooth touchdown -- but then it's the inordinately long process of queuing to the American immigration desk. Then it's those interminable chats with the walking-dead border staff that consider humour to be the work of Satan.

The Rolls Royce engine on the curvbed wing of the 787-9. Photo: Johnny Tucker
The Rolls Royce engine on the curvbed wing of the 787-9. Photo: Johnny Tucker.

And talking of The Walking Dead, we've just landed in Atlanta, Georgia (where the first episode of the zombie series kicks off, in case you're wondering...). Branson chose this destination deliberately, as he outlines in a press conference the next day at 8.30am, which is filled with sleep-deprived journalists who are, in turn, filled with a snatched breakfast burrito or two.

By passenger numbers, Atlanta's Hartsfield- Jackson Airport is the busiest on the planet. It is also home to Delta Airlines, with which Branson is forging a strategic relationship that he hopes will help him compete with the Oneworld Alliance -- not friends of Bob Marley, but a partnership of world-leading airlines, including his nemesis and major bugbear, British Airways. Atlanta is a massive hub airport and this opens up a lot of American routes for Virgin. That said, this particular plane will start its scheduled life by flying the route between Heathrow and Boston.

On board, apart from cool elements like electronically dimming windows, the main thing you notice is just how high the ceilings are. 'You have so much more space to work with and the side walls are straighter because of this cavernous roof, ' enthuses VA design manager for customer experience, Nik Lusardi. 'The aircraft is much more spacious, with large windows, and it is the cutting edge of flying right now. For us there was an excitement that we could really do something special with this aircraft when we came to design it.'

As well as refreshing the cabin design throughout, from seats to finishes, the Upper Class cabin has come in for redesign attention, including the predominantly Corian bar area that was inhabited by Gorgon City and Rudimental on the way out. Sitting on two of the bar's four stools on the much calmer flight back, Lusardi explains the minutiae of airline-cabin design and how the Virgin team worked with architect VW&BS on the new bar.

The new Upper Class bar area, minus the decks and crowds
The new Upper Class bar area, minus the decks and crowds.Photo Courtesy Virgin Atlantic

He continues: 'We wanted to bring some of the romance back to flying, with a much more sophisticated, lighter palette. There's a strong design narrative that works right through the plane. And also linking this all together is the programmable mood lighting throughout. This plane is a game-changer for the company and sets out the stall for the future.' In fact this design will be the blueprint for the airline's new £2bn fleet of 16 Dreamliners being delivered over the next two years.

This first aircraft has been named Birthday Girl to celebrate 30 years of flying for Virgin. In Atlanta, at the 30th-birthday bash on a rooftop overlooking the city, Branson amuses the audience with tales of airborne antics, including Virgin's very first flight, which was also something of a party. The captain decided to have a little fun with the passengers, who were all standing up. He tilted the wings on one side, before coming on the PA and asking 30 passengers to move from one side to the other to even the plane up a bit. This they duly did. The captain then moved the plane back to nearly horizontal before asking a further six people to move to the other side.

Branson was on form, the crowd was warmed up, so it was time to get on with the evening. 'So that's enough of me, take it away The Rudimentals! Rock on!' Oh Richard, you were doing so well...








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