British Airways versus Virgin Atlantic

[Trifle]

We're flying to Florida in May and only want to fly with Virgin or BA as they go direct and we cant face flying with any tour operators who funnily enough are coming in much more expensive anyway. Dilema is, who to choose. We'll have 2 kids with us aged 3 and 4 and from what I gather both provide child goody packs, not sure about individual tv screens so would be useful to know. I cant find any info about seat pitch either so if anyone has done this route and prefers one airline over the other then your opinions would be greatly appreciated.

[princessinapeartree]

seat pitch disastrous with both, but virgin over ba any day for every other reason!

[sunchowder]

Virgin is far better, we have flown several times from the States over to UK. Great fun packs, the food wasn't so bad either. They had individual seat screens--I would fly Virgin again anytime over BA! If you can afford to upgrade to business class (can you do that we the babies? We never have), there is supposed to be so much more leg room. My feet swell and I hate the long flight, but I suffer just to go see DH's family!

[CountessDingDongDrac]

Yes, though virgin has smaller seat pitch than BA it's still better IMO. Try and go premium economy, not as expensive as business class.

[futurity]

In the days we had money we flew Virgin Premium Economy to Florida and it was fab. Serious amounts of leg space. We didn't have children at the time but I remember there being some in that section. We also flew Economy and that was fine as well. I highly rate Virgin (but not done BA so can't compare)

[TiredDragon]

I used to swear by Virgin and have flown with them many times. However, we had to fly BA on our last Florida trip and TBH there was nothing to choose between them. Both had seat back TVs, the food was good with both and the cabin crew were both comparable. BA did provide more age appropriate kiddie bags though as they had a specific one for younger children (preschool ish). The Virgin kiddie bag was really only good for the bag (the Virgin bag was better but the BA contents were better!)

As far as Premium Ecomnoy goes, you seem to get very little for your upgrade fee.