UPPER CLASS DEPRIVED

by MONITOR
REPORTS that Virgin is to drop its inflight beauty and massage services on transatlantic flights will not worry the great majority of passengers. But for those with Upper Class tickets the decision will be a great disappointment. With Concorde grounded for ever, the only distinctiveness left in travel to and from New York has been the unique Virgin service. Its popularity can be gauged by the fact that as many as 280 specially-trained attendants, accustomed to freshening tired faces and relaxing aching muscles, will have to be retrained as regular cabin staff or redeployed at the Virign spa facility at Heathrow. Virgin introduced on-board massage treatments almost twenty years ago as a way of differentiating its Upper Class service from its competitors; it may fly less frequently than most of them, but it offers something they don't have. The new policy follows a survey showing that most Upper Class passengers preferred sleep to a massage or facial. However, Virgin may have overlooked an important point. Will sleep be possible in any class, upper or lower or middle, now that the use of mobile phones in flight is to be permitted? This crazy concession to people who find it impossible to read or think or just do nothing is going to turn aircraft interiors into tunnels of babel. How long before we are able to choose between no-mobiles or mobiles cabins as we used to ask for smoking or non-smoking?