I flew Virgin Atlantic only once - and then only from Boston to London and back. So this review is based on just the one time experience.
The going to London part was smooth enough - the flight attendants friendly, the food passable. They brought out a little seat for my daughter as soon as practically possible, so that she could be comfortable in her own seat. (She was two years old). They have a seatback entertainment system that is... entertaining. It had all the latest movies, including one or two Hindi, games that you could play by yourself or with others on the plane (I won a Trivia game hands down! I was the only one playing). Most importantly for families, that system included special programming for kids of all sizes. For my tot, that included Thomas the Tank Engine, Bob the Builder, Kipper, and Winnie the Pooh. She wouldn’t wear the headphones, but the animated characters kept her attention for a little while until she fell asleep.
They give you little bags with toothpaste and socks and notebook and so on, even if you are a lowly sheep in the economy class. Sure, I know I could carry my own toothpaste and socks. But, there is that wonderful feeling when somebody gives you a free bag of goodies to look through!
If going there was good, coming back was better. We had my parents with us coming back, and my father has special seating requirements. We’d reached check-in late, so most seats were taken. The lady at check-in told us she got us the seats we wanted, but before she could hit enter on her computer, somebody else got them. It was the end of this lady’s shift, and she was ready to leave. But the tenacious woman stayed behind and fought it out with the other agent until we had our seats.
My daughter got a KidPack, a backpack with a storybook, small magazine and miscellaneous stuff like a baseball hat and a bracelet watch. She had fun sorting through it, and I had fun reading the storybook. We weren’t given the special booster seat for my daughter on the way back, and we didn’t ask for it. To be honest, it looks uncomfortable. My daughter slept more comfortably (though less safely) with her head on my lap while I took in the movie ’’Sideways’’. Let me get in a word about the entertainment system here. When there is only one small screen in the airplane playing a movie, you either watch it or you snuggle up and sleep. With this system, if you’re watching a movie, you always have a sneaking suspicion that you’re watching a dud and maybe the other movie was better. I ended up switching between movies and saw a little bit of this and that. I only watched Sideways in entirety because the control module fell down, and I couldn’t retrieve it with my daughter asleep on me. During landing, since the regular size seat wouldn’t be safe enough for my daughter, they gave me a lap seatbelt to hold her in place.
Overall, they seemed to be family friendly. You could order a kid meal if you wanted (I guess you can do that on most airlines anyway), but they don’t have a vegetarian kid meal. Emirates, to my surprise, does have such an offering.
My parents, who had flown in Emirates to London, thought Emirates the better of the two airlines. But overall, we had a good experience flying Virgin Atlantic.