Someone said the great thing about travel is the journey, not the destination. At Viator we take issue with that for about 5,000 different reasons — as in the 5,000 tours and things to do you can book in hundreds of destinations worldwide at viator.com. For us travel is all about the destination, and certainly not about the journey.
But that’s not to say we don’t think getting there can be a lot of fun. With that in mind I accepted an invitation to fly with our new partner, Silverjet, who operate one of the new all-business-class services between London and New York. OK, it wasn’t a difficult decision, given I had to fly from London back to San Francisco anyway. Why not see what all the fuss is about, and pick up a commuter flight from NYC to SF the next day?
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| Silverjet: Big comfy seats, less stress all round… |
The Silverjet difference starts at the check-in terminal. Based at one of London’s smaller airports, Luton, Silverjet have their own separate building and a process that looks nothing like a regular check-in. Walk in and you’re met by one of their staff who relieves you of your burden; you take a seat, grab a drink, a snack, have a shower or generally just chill out in luxury. A staff member will appear at some stage to check your passport and hand you a boarding pass, but you never have to wait in line or anything déclassé like that.
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| The Silverjet departure lounge at Luton |
Boarding is similarly low-key: the security is tight but friendly, everything flows smoothly, and things happen on time. The planes are nice big Boeing 767s, lots of room, all one class and all comfortable sleeper seats. Personal video and all that stuff goes without saying. Service on board is attentive without being overpowering and the food is exactly as it should be for an up-market carrier.
But the thing I liked best about Silverjet is not something you can see or even describe very easily: it’s the lack of pressure, the total absence of having to worry about the mundane elements of travel like checking in, lining up, getting a good seat, whether the meal will be edible, who you’ll be sitting next to, and so on. Put simply, flying with Silverjet is a relaxing experience, and sort of fun. This is probably what air travel was like on those early trans-Atlantic flights, when everyone dressed up and it was a social event.
Anyway, I’m happy to add my voice to the many reviews I’ve read in praise of this new class of airline. If you’re planning to fly across the pond anytime soon, do yourself a favour* and try Silverjet.
* Apologies to my countryman Ian “Molly” Meldrum for use of his trademark line. And click here to read a previous Viator Blog post about Silverjet.
January 29th, 2008 at 5:50 pm
looks expensive but really nice. it’s so clean and new.
May 20th, 2008 at 9:59 pm
It looks absolutley great. Silverjet in Australia?