Removal of Upper Class Essentials

Gawd.

Just flew Air Canada back from YVR, and even they offer their J pax an amenity kit - a shiny zippable washbag, with lip balm, moisturiser, socks, shades and ear plugs, toothbrush and toothpaste, and... wait for it... a single, individually wrapped, mentos mint!

No AC branded pen though, but our YVR-based cabin-crew did have special 2010 Winter Olympics ties and scarves.

Mike

EEK! Not much left then. Hardly going to feel pampered. I know the seat is the main reason for travelling Upper, but it is the little things which make the difference to the whole experience.

I have a trip I need to do to Australia later this year. Unless I'm mistaken, I can get a SUITE on the Singapore Airlines A380 for just 400 more than the rather shabby (in comparison) Upper Class on VS. Looks like 6 grand on Singapore and 5.5 grand on VS.

[Scrooge]

quote:Originally posted by RK
I have a trip I need to do to Australia later this year. Unless I'm mistaken, I can get a SUITE on the Singapore Airlines A380 for just 400 more than the rather shabby (in comparison) Upper Class on VS. Looks like 6 grand on Singapore and 5.5 grand on VS.


Well that's a rather easy choice to make.

quote:
Well that's a rather easy choice to make.


[:w]

quote:Originally posted by Edna Cloud
EEK! Not much left then. Hardly going to feel pampered. I know the seat is the main reason for travelling Upper, but it is the little things which make the difference to the whole experience



Hmmm. I could take or leave the seat. It was the UC service that really made an impact on me. I loved the PE seat that I had on the way back.

The amenity basket is a funny one - I think there are pics here of various amenity kits collected on various flights, so it's clear that not everyone uses them.

I think it's a bit like swimming pools in hotels - apparently something like 70% of guests say that a swimming pool influences their choice if hotel, but actually only 10% use them.

VS I hope have something up their sleeve. I think the seat and service are more important deciders, but for frequent flyers I can see that this nickel-and-dime saving looks bad.

[Scrooge]

When it comes to amenity pack for me, it's not so much the using them during the flights, it's having something to use where ever I end up, with the TSA being a royal pain in the butt it is so much easier to just pick up a good quality amenity pack and use that.

With that said, the last few trips have ended with a quick trip to boots/walgreens to grab what I need.

[RichardMannion]

Morons - pure and simple. In the past decade they used to do PR around their new Amenity kits such as Space:NK, Ozwald Boateng etc. To have a better kit in Y and W is just obscene.

[Scrooge]

I was just over on A'Net when I came across THIS TR, I am left wondering, why can't VS do this, it's so sad, seeing the difference between the two airlines.

You need to scroll down a bit to get to the long haul segment.

quote:Originally posted by Scrooge
I was just over on A'Net when I came across THIS TR, I am left wondering, why can't VS do this, it's so sad, seeing the difference between the two airlines.

You need to scroll down a bit to get to the long haul segment.

But see the comment at the end:
quote:'Service onboard was excellent , but overall its still inconsistent and very much depends on the crew.'

Heard that before...

[Scrooge]

quote:Originally posted by Bill S
quote:Originally posted by Scrooge
I was just over on A'Net when I came across THIS TR, I am left wondering, why can't VS do this, it's so sad, seeing the difference between the two airlines.

You need to scroll down a bit to get to the long haul segment.

But see the comment at the end:
quote:'Service onboard was excellent , but overall its still inconsistent and very much depends on the crew.'

Heard that before...


Very true, but look at the amenity pack and more importantly, the food.

I have travelled to DXB with TK in business a couple of times and they are very good. I even managed to drink 3/4 a bottle of Ballantines in the lounge in IST[:I]. A very nice place to spend a few hours.

Iain

[:#] I quite liked the pens, due to a flight delay with a connecting flight I had to fly BA and not VS and I sooooo was dissapointed not to get a pen (or any decent service for that matter)

Looking at that Turkish flight to HKG, it reminded me of just how much has been lost, and what could be. I am sure VS have some numbnut bean counter (or should that be peanut counter) employed as 'Baby out with the Bathwater Manager' whose target was to find another measily 5,000 in annual savings, irrespective of what the cumulative effect is on yields. Sickening.

When will they realise that any brand loyalty many of us had previously has now disappeared? Gotta say, I don't think VS much really cares a jot anymore about being special, and are happy with their lot in the cesspool of mediocrity.

Richard, do I earn my 5?

H

[Editted for spelling]

[Scrooge]

Well they figure it will save them 700000 pounds a year, now this tells me two things.

Firstly whoever is their buyer is needs to be beaten soundly.
Second as Howard says, they don't care, they think that no matter what crap is put out as a product people will continue to fly them.

700,000

VS carried just over 5m pax last year, just under half of them on LGW/MAN aircraft.
So LGW/MAN ~75,000 UC pax.
LHR ~400,000 pax
That is assuming UC & others at similar capacity - probably over estimating UC pax
Say 450,000 total UC pax
700,000 / 450,000 - VS are saving less than 2 per amenity pack.

Conclusions - buyer should not be beaten too soundly!

But the question for UC pax is : Are you willing to pay an extra 2 a flight to keep the pack?

Unfortunately the beancounter will only see the 700000 - and not consider the 2...or the perceptions that cutting that 2 will produce.

[Scrooge]

That's not the cost of the amenity pack, that's the cost of the essentials, pen, polos etc, seriously, for the bulk VS must buy in the buyer should still be beaten IMHO

As it is, I still don't understand why VS doesn't approach one of the placement companies to have samples carried at no cost to them.

I used to get excited about amenity packs in Upper in the days of the Ozwald Boateng packs and the like. These days I can't get excited about being handed some free tubes of stuff and a pack of polos. It makes absolutely no difference to me whether they give them to me or not. If it saves them money, it doesn't bother me in the slightest.

I will still use Virgin because they are better than the competition on the routes I fly. I will still use PE because it's a great combination of price and value. I will still look forward to flying in Upper whenever I can because it's about a lot more than the freebies - the bed, the service, the food etc etc.

Get a life, people!!

Chris

Yet another reduction of UC perks.


I always grab a pen if available, I dont often use them but enjoy
adding to the collection.

In future I will drink an extra glass of champagne to compensate for the loss of available goodies.

[Pete]

quote:Originally posted by Scrooge
That's not the cost of the amenity pack, that's the cost of the essentials, pen, polos etc, seriously, for the bulk VS must buy in the buyer should still be beaten IMHO

As it is, I still don't understand why VS doesn't approach one of the placement companies to have samples carried at no cost to them.


Still costs money to carry them. I still miss the red pillows.

quote:Originally posted by Pete
quote:Originally posted by Scrooge
That's not the cost of the amenity pack, that's the cost of the essentials, pen, polos etc, seriously, for the bulk VS must buy in the buyer should still be beaten IMHO

As it is, I still don't understand why VS doesn't approach one of the placement companies to have samples carried at no cost to them.


Still costs money to carry them. I still miss the red pillows.

...and the flower on the bar, and the IFBT, and Tanqueray 10 (repeat to fade)...

quote:Originally posted by oldboy
Yet another reduction of UC perks.


I always grab a pen if available, I dont often use them but enjoy
adding to the collection.

In future I will drink an extra glass of champagne to compensate for the loss of available goodies.



You had better do that in the clubhouse (if applicable) then cos they'll run out onboard. [;)]

Maybe you should (gasp) fly BA and drink it before the CC pour it away ...

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/ ... -strike.do

[Scrooge]

quote:Originally posted by Pete
quote:Originally posted by Scrooge
That's not the cost of the amenity pack, that's the cost of the essentials, pen, polos etc, seriously, for the bulk VS must buy in the buyer should still be beaten IMHO

As it is, I still don't understand why VS doesn't approach one of the placement companies to have samples carried at no cost to them.


Still costs money to carry them. I still miss the red pillows.


True, but if VS are getting to the point where they have to worry about the extra weight of some pens and some mints then there are much bigger issues at work.

There's a lot of ways of taking 1mil of cost out of an operation like that - lay off some middle mgmt, staff, cut the BUPA program, etc etc. Not to put too fine a point on it, but there are a lot of ways of doing this in an operation a tenth of the size of VS.

Screwing with a UC revenue stream that has to fall somewhere above the half billion pounds really doesn't seem the way to go. This might not be on a par with the US auto industry in the 70s, but it's certainly not in line with the SQ CEO cutting his own salary, but not the wine allowance for First Class. It very much looks like what US airlines did to their International product post 9/11, and it will take them well over ten years to recover. During that time, VS made the bold decision to roll out UCS in the middle of a recession, and that certainly paid off.

Tongue in cheek I'm sure to some extent when folks keep saying this, but I really don't see how we can blame the finance folks. They get cost goals, and directions about where they can go, and what is off limits. This sort of thing falls squarely with senior management, and no one else. I'm sure these are difficult decisions, I just don't see them as bean counter decisions. Or rather, by the time the bean counter takes that 700k line out of the budget, it's way down the line from the strategy having been set.