A:
We can start by ruling out Virgin America, which services McCarran International Airport both from JFK in New York City (as of Sept. 4) and from San Francisco. It employs the Airbus A320, which has a seating capacity of 149, as well as the A319, which carries 121 passengers. Too small, obviously.
That leaves Virgin Atlantic, which employs the larger Airbus A340-300 and -600, which seat 295 and 380 passengers, respectively. Virgin Atlantic also uses the Boeing 747-400. This positively ginormous aircraft seats 416 passengers and Virgin Atlantic is said to own 13 of them. However ... the airline's PR agency informs us that Virgin Atlantic does not fly the 747 on its Las Vegas-to-Gatwick transatlantic route, which departs from McCarran at 4 p.m. daily.
To add to the confusion, Virgin says it doesn't always fly the same make of plane on the same route. Our best conjecture is that you saw an A340-600 making a belated departure for London. But maybe one of the photographs below will jog your memory.
A340-600
A320-200
747-400
Update 08 October 2008
Aha! Here's the latest on what we never figured would be such a contentious QoD:
"I fly from Gatwick to Vegas with Virgin every year. More often than not it is on the 747. Last year, when it was the Airbus, I noticed and thought, 'Hey this is different, where's the Boeing?'. (As a pilot and aviation enthusiast I would have noticed if we'd been in an Airbus before, believe me.) My guess is that the Virgin PR people told you about their current policy rather than what has been the case historically."
10/07/2008 Thanks to everyone who wrote in pointing out that originally we'd captioned the photos backwards -- now fixed! Also, an airline-savvy reader says that Virgin Atlantic has misinformed us, citing 127 instances between June 7 and Oct. 7 of this year when a Virgin Boeing 747-400 flew out of Las Vegas, bound for Gatwick. The nominal 4 p.m. departure appears to be honored more in the breach than the observance, with one flight getting out as late as 8:14 p.m., and many others doing so during the five o'clock hour.
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