VS Standards Slipping

Are Virgin’s standards slipping?

Just come back from a return trip to LAX and as a humble economy traveller I’ve never known things as bad as this.

Firstly, both legs were on the A346. I love this aircraft however both were tired and tatty inside. Now I know you will say these are old aircraft. But in my opinion that’s irrelevant. We pay for the same product whatever aircraft we are on and VS should be maintaining them to the same standards. Clearly they are not.

Half the IFE didn’t work both ways (different aircraft). We didn’t have an aircraft equipped with WIFI on the return trip, despite there being a card in our seat pocket about how to get online! (It’s like they were trolling us).

Meal choices were a complete shambles, with 3 options on the outbound and by the time they got to us only one was left. OK for me but many vegetarians could not eat at all!

I’ve always enjoyed my flights with VS but this last trip was simply awful. Such a shame!

The issue of meal choices running out is common to most airlines. To save money they only cater to between 110 and 130% of the load so if one choice is particularly popular it will run out.

Vegetarians - and anyone else requiring a special meal - should always pre-order and definitely not rely on the standard menu.

As for the A346s, yes they’re showing their age. But they were due to have gone by now so VS were hardly going to spend millions refurbishing them.

Sorry gumshoe I do not agree at all.

I’ve never had this problem with meal options before, and it’s usually pretty clear what the most popular one would be and the least popular too. On this flight it looked like that intelligence was missing.

Secondly old planes or not, due for retirement or not things like IFE screens should still work... One or two I’d understand, loads is unacceptable. I’m not talking about wholesale refurbishment just making sure the aircraft meets a standard.

These problems went beyond economy and I can imagine potential lucrative new customers being put off virgin by this experience if this was their first exposure to the airline.

Whether it is pretty clear or not on this flight, every flight is different and no one flight is the same as to which meal you run out of, the airline will tweak it based on feedback but tomorrow’s flight they could run out of another. As for entertainment problems can occur from time to time in the air that were not apparent on the ground - a couple of engineers cannot simulate 200+ people testing the servers to their limit so cannot forsee a problem just the same it is annoying when your car breaks down yet didn’t the day before.. these things happen in all airlines from time to time it does not point to a degradation of general standards.

I’m an economy passenger most of the time too and have previously experienced multiple times of my first and second meal choices being unavailable and this wasn’t recent either. I tend to sit a lot of the times in the rear few rows of the A346 and by the time the trolley gets to me many choices would have been gone. If there were 2 meal services on the longer flight they sometimes start the first meal service from the front and the second meal service from the rear. But running out of meal choices is not something new.

In my recent Premium experience I was on the last row of a 787 and my meal choice ran out but economy was serving the same food so the crew grabbed the meal from economy. So instead of the main course served on china it was out of the plastic container.

I totally agree with gumshoe regarding the meals.
The only way to guarantee every person could chose any meal would be to put the whole menu on for each passenger and that clearly is not realistic so they have come up with a formula that works for most people most of the time.
I have not had my choice of meal quite a few times. Once it was Mrs D that didn't get her choice of starter so she volunteered me to give up mine which I did. The very nice steward added 4000 miles to my flying club account. After the event, Mrs D said she would have changed for 4000 miles. "Ah, but you didn't." says I.
My most recent trip I was asked, "would you mind not having the salmon?" I had chosen it to go with a Chablis on the menu, but no big deal I had steak instead with a very nice glass of Malbec.
Life is full of choices and if you don't get your first one, choose again.
Dick D

Meal choices are always difficult; in January my wife and I flew to LAX with BA in WTP to pick up a cruise booked by P&O, and we were in the second row... They had run out of meal choices by then. I didn't realise you can pre-book your meal choices on certain routes, and the steward explained that most of the beef was "reserved". Apparently BA don't adjust the catering based on the pre-booked choices, so if there are (say) 30 pax in WTP, they might cater 12 of each meal choice. If 10 people pre-book the beef, then there are only a couple available for the rest. As above, he brought me a meal from economy, fortunately the plane was less than half full and club was nearly empty but no upgrades were available for cash or Avois - I did ask at check-in!

I had no ife on both legs of a LHR-BOS return in PE, wasnt fussed on the outbound and offered an ipad but was a night flight and declined in favour of points as felt other would miss it more than me. I never really understand all the hate for the 346 fleet, they are great aircraft, super quiet and relatively spacious. Yes the screens are in need of a refresh, often thought why they hadnt just changed the lcd panels over the years but usually ok.

I tend to find when sh*t happens it does usually come all at once. Maybe you were just unfortunate at the end of the day...

It's something that has amazed me for a while that, in this day and age, airlines still can't offer a pre selection service. Surely with all the tech out there and a bit of planning from a logistics point of view this could be achieved?

For short notice bookings I can see an issue but for those that book way in advance why can't this be offered as part of the service. I know VS are trialling it but come on, this is not rocket science.