Anyone know the recovery plan - Help Please

Get yourself to the airport well in advance of check in opening for the first flight out, get yourself on standby and haggle. That's the way it was in shanghai this morning.

Virgin have just announced that anyone can now book anything, including new bookings for travel from today. There is no more restrictions to agents only being able to book travel from 01MAY and availability is slowly creeping in as people release the seats they had held as a back up.
Can see seats back from NYC from 27 April now.
Good luck!

I've been a wee bit out of the loop recently, gotta love tax season, but I've been doing some catchup reading today!

The way I see it, in an ideal world there would be NO empty flights on any carrier, leaving the US/other longhaul destinations and heading back to the UK. At least not while there are still people stranded away from home. For situations like this, there should be some sort of seat pooling system for all airlines. If Delta have 4 seats left from JFK to LHR, Continental have 3, BA have 7 etc etc and Virgin could fill those seats then they can buy them for a set amount, and get an extra 14 people home a day or two earlier, rather than paying extra nights accommodation and food. Obviously that's an extremely simplified explanation, but with reports of planes heading back to the UK with empty seats, and people still stranded with estimated departure dates a week or more away, there must be a better solution.

Also, I can't remember off top of my head, how many planes was it VS sent off to long term parking? Are they still there, and how long does it take to get them up and running again. Would it have been financially viable to get them flying again, at least for a week or two, to help with this situation?

Also, I can't remember off top of my head, how many planes was it VS sent off to long term parking? Are they still there, and how long does it take to get them up and running again. Would it have been financially viable to get them flying again, at least for a week or two, to help with this situation?

I agree, surely it would make sense to return G-VGOA and G-VATL for the next couple of weeks or so... unless they are overdue for heavy maintenance checks which may be the case.

Just on the flip side. We are flying home from MCO on our originally scheduled flight this Saturday (25th) and feel might relieved that we are - it was looking touch and go for a while.

I do however feel absoloutely awful that we are getting home ahead of stranded Brits who should have been home a week ago. I wish the situation eases as fast as possible and best of luc to the OP Sarah.

FM

Thanks to everyone that mentioned calling. Now due home early Monday 26th instead of the following week. Virgin's words and actions no longer differ! Apols for the delay but 74 degrees on the Jersey shore so had to be done today. I wish everyone that needs repatriating a safe flight home.

Thanks to everyone that mentioned calling. Now due home early Monday 26th instead of the following week. Virgin's words and actions no longer differ! Apols for the delay but 74 degrees on the Jersey shore so had to be done today. I wish everyone that needs repatriating a safe flight home.

Great stuff - there's an old saying, still true, "if at first you don't succeed ..."

Indeed, slinky09. The hotel bill makes interesting reading! I am charged an insignificant fee every time a toll-free call exceeds 30 minutes. I started calling Virgin toll-free number at 6pm, understandably engaged and frustratingly cut-off whilst queued, in equal measure. Longest call was when I did get to speak with someone and that call was 112 minutes........as it started at 9pm I calculate I tried.......and succeeded but it did take 5 hours. People in our hotel with Continental are home tonight.........