Hello and welcome to this review of the flight from Ben Gurion Airport (TLV) to London-Heathrow Airport (LHR), which I took on 16 April 2022 on my way to a family trip in London.
This flight is a significant personal milestone for me for four reasons: it was my first time flying as an adult, my first time flying after the COVID pandemic, my first time flying Business class on an airline other than El Al, the only time I flew with COVID measures in effect.
Unfortunately, since this trip was with my family and took place several years before the initial writing of this report, I did not take many pictures of the flight: this report will be very image-poor, and I can only offer my apology for this.
The flight itinerary for the trip was:
Flight routing
- 1VS454 - Business - Tel Aviv → London - Airbus A330-300
- 2
BACKGROUND
During April 2022, at the week of the Jewish Holiday of Passover, me and my family (my parents, my siblings, and myself) went on a trip to London. London is a destination beloved by my parents, which means I had many family vacations there; I visited it six times prior to this trip, in 2002 (my first time ever flying, when I was not even a year old), in 2008, twice in 2014, in 2017, and in 2019 (my last time flying before the COVID pandemic). I would later visit London again two more times as of the initial writing of this report (in December 2022 and in 2024).
The flight was a red-eye flight, and took place right after the Passover Seder, which extended from around 18:30 to midnight. For this reason, we didn't have much time to prepare for the flight, and practically had to pack everything and head to the Airport the moment we came home from the Seder.
BEN GURION AIRPORT - TERMINAL 3
Me and my family arrived at the Airport by 3:25, around three hours before the scheduled departure time.
Since this was in the waning end of the COVID pandemic, and whatever remaining health measures were still in effect concerned international travel (which, naturally, I was partaking in) the airport was not as deserted as it would have been in 2020 or 2021, but it was still rather empty:
Terminal 3 looked nearly unchanged from the then-last time I've been to it in 2019 - the same advertisements were there, like the Shlomo Car clock and the posters for Elite's candies…
…with the notable exception of the El Al posters advertising flights to Morocco and Dubai, which couldn't have been there any earlier than September 2020.
THE DAN LOUNGE - TERMINAL 3
Ben Gurion Airport is the complete opposite of a lounge-lover's paradise. Terminal 3 has only three lounges: the (not very well-known) Arbel Lounge, which is more accurately a separate VIP security and boarding channel, and two lounges in the Terminal itself. These two lounges are the El Al King David lounge - by far the better of the two - which is reserved exclusively for El Al passengers (though that would hopefully change if and when El Al realizes its ambition to join SkyTeam), and the Dan lounge, which is used by the passengers of all other airlines.
While it was elegantly decorated, the Dan lounge was small and full of people, which made it feel cramped as well. There's also not much in the way of food - the buffet is physically small, has few options, and (like all the dining options in Ben Gurion Airport) is strictly kosher. This miserable lounge was a sour note on my journey and a complete contrast from the excellent service in the flight itself and in VS's excellent Clubhouse lounges - thank God that this was my outbound flight…
In the lounge I had a rudimentary breakfast of tea and some bread and cheese.
We spent an hour in the lounge until boarding began at around 6.
THE FLIGHT ITSELF
Aircraft information:
G-VINE "Champagne Belle"
Airbus A330-343 (construction number 1231)
Delivered new to Virgin Atlantic on 11 July 2011; 10 years and 11 months old at the time of the flight.
Sold to Thai Airways in August 2025 and now carries the registration HS-TEX.
This was my first (and as of the initial writing of this report, the only) time flying on that plane.
On the Airbus A330ceo, Virgin Atlantic's Business Class, called Upper Class, utilizes Zodiac Aerospace UCS3 seats having 20-inch seat width, in a 1-1-1 herringbone configuration.
Each seat is equipped with an IFE screen, a USB-A plug, an AC plug, and a personal reading light. All of these are located on one of the seat's sidewalls (left on rows A and G, right on row K), which also hosts the tray table and fold-down cocktail table. In front of the seat, there is a footstool. The seat's other sidewall contains the seat controls, and not much else.
These seats have two unique features, which I have never seen in any other long-haul Business-class seat I flew on before or since - though my experience in that department is pretty limited*, even as of the initial writing of this report - the first of these is the car-style seatbelt buckle, located at the side of the seats where the controls are (though the seatbelt itself the complete opposite of a car one, thick and non-retracting, as it was airbag-equipped). The second one will be discussed later down the report.
* - Apart from El Al's old product and Virgin Atlantic's UCS3s, the only other long-haul Business seats I flew on as of the initial writing of this report would be SWISS' modified Thompson Vantage on the 777 and Lufthansa's modified Collins Diamond on the A340, both of them in October 2024. In addition, I have a booked flight on El Al's 787 business class (which has stock Recaro CL6710 seats), which I will fly in February 2026.
My seat for this flight was seat 2G, almost at the very front of the airplane.
Virgin Atlantic was the first-ever airline to introduce a herringbone layout in business class, as early as 2003. The design was groundbreaking for the time, and it took other airliners 10 to 15 years to catch up.
Even though I took this flight in 2022, well after this sort of layout became standard and even a bit subpar, it was still a world away from the only Business-class seat I flew on up until that point (not just on a long-haul flight, but in general) — El Al's old business class product on the Boeing 777, which was a representative sample of the average business class seat in 2003, and notoriously behind-the-times in the 2020s.
The plane took off right on schedule, at 6:35. About an hour later, a second breakfast - one much better than the one I had in the lounge - was served. However, I didn't take a picture of the menu and couldn't find it online.
The breakfast consisted of a croissant, a fruit salad, a small omlette, a (grilled?) tomato, a croquette (or mushroom) of some kind, and some slices of bacon.
Not long after finishing breakfast, I decided it was finally time to get some sleep (as I spent all night moving between the Seder dinner and the flight). It was then that I discovered the unconventional way this business class-seat switches to bed mode: instead of the passenger doing it themself, by reclining the seat all the way into the flat position (as it was in all other seats I flew on before or since, as of the initial writing of this report), you are supposed to call a flight attendant, who would close down the seat (somewhat like a laptop lid) as part of the process of making bed. This proved to be especially inconvenient when I woke up.
The in-flight entertainment system was overall excellent, and even had a decently-sized selection of movies. However, due to the flight's limited time - especially given that I spent slightly more than half of it sleeping - I only saw one movie on board, James Gunn's Suicide Squad, and I didn't even get to finish it.
The landing in Heathrow was mostly uneventful, though it was my first-ever time landing in Heathrow's Terminal 3 - my previous landings there were with El Al in Terminals 1 and 4; Aer Lingus in Terminal 2; and British Airways in Terminals 4 and 5.
