Would a £200,000 loo persuade you to fly with Richard Branson?
MOST people jetting off on their holidays this summer will care only about getting safely from A to B. I doubt too many will spend time scrutinising the stitching on their seat, or marvelling at the mechanics of the lavatory lid.
Yet for Nick Lusardi, design manager at Virgin Atlantic, these were vital components when it came to kitting out their new aircraft.
Virgin Atlantic: Up In The Air (ITV) marked the airline’s 30th birthday and the rolling- out of a fleet of Boeing 787 Dreamliners at around a staggering £200 million per plane.
British Airways had their own BBC fly- on-the-wall series last year. In that, they came across as very prim and proper parents. When it comes to Virgin Atlantic, they’re more like the naughty kids: fun, cheeky, and desperate to be liked.
After financial troubles, the airline has taken the decision to slowly phase out its existing fleet of gas-guzzlers and splash out on the Dreamliners. On board, an individual upper class seat costs £130,000, while the lavatory cubicle (complete with mood lighting and a swanky slowclosing lid) comes in at £200,000.
It’s all part of ‘the experience’ that Virgin Atlantic wants its customers to have while flying with them (though truth is that most would swap a less luxurious loo for an inch or two of extra legroom).
Although founder Sir Richard Branson now has little to do with the day-to-day running of the business,
BEST WIMBLEDON ACTION: Forget new balls, it’s been a case of endless new formats on BBC2’s much-criticised Wimbledon 2Day. In the space of six shows, it’s gone from presenters standing at a bar to standing at a table, on bar stools, then by chairs at a table. Finally, we have chairs behind a desk. Phew!
he was still greeted like a teen pop idol when he put in an appearance at HQ. He must be doing something right, because most of the staff seemed to stay a very long time.
The key to the success of any TV programme like this is that the viewer must be able to engage with the characters on screen — and where the BA series failed, this one does not. People like the engaging Katrine, a 58-year-old grandmother seen achieving her lifelong ambition of becoming an air hostess, gave it an amazing feel-good factor.
She described herself as ‘the Flying Nana’ and was delighted to have earned her wings as cabin crew — particularly since the majority of the 2,000 hopefuls applying for the 158 jobs were all 20- something glamour-pusses.
Along with her fellow trolleydollies, Katrine is now walking an average of seven miles for every tenhour flight she works aboard. All that’s left is to get over her lifelong phobia of vomit.
There’s no doubt that the programme did come across as an hour-long plug for Mr Branson’s business — but it was an incredibly entertaining one.
Far less uplifting was yet another dose of poverty porn from a
broadcaster that now seems to deal in little else.
Benefits By The Sea (Channel 5) returned for a new series, this time focusing its cameras on the Essex town of Jaywick. It’s a place where half of the 5,000 residents are on benefits, and half of those are claiming some form of disability payment.
The town is divided into three areas: Tudor Estate (the posh bit), Jaywick Village (where the shops are) and Brooklands, a hellhole where families are living in accommodation that most people wouldn’t dream of housing their lawnmower in.
At Brooklands, the rows of rundown shacks resembled a South African shanty town. Little wonder it’s known locally as ‘Badlands’. The only business thriving is the local tattoo parlour, where the owner admitted: ‘The youngsters come in to get their boyfriend’s and girlfriend’s names tattooed — and then three weeks later they’re back to get them inked over.’
People like Jay, an unemployed serial criminal who was using his benefits money to get four exgirlfriends’ names tattooed over on various parts of his body.
In among the host of scallies were people who genuinely deserved better than their wretched existence. People like single dad Carl, who seemed to be doing the best he could for his two teenage daughters; or 17-year-old Louise, who wanted to pass her exams and become a care assistant.
But what good will yet another programme like this do them?