VS Skytrax 3* Downgrade

I have posted reveiws on skytrax and must say they have appeared word for word - but will happily try it again on my next flight to see what happens with my next VA TR.
Jon

[Darren Wheeler]

It's also interesting that the overall score is 4/10. This score is reflected in the ratings in the trip reports here

It's also interesting that the overall score is 4/10. This score is reflected in the ratings in the trip reports here

I thought our scores were out of 5 though? so 4/5 = 8/10

[Darren Wheeler]

It's also interesting that the overall score is 4/10. This score is reflected in the ratings in the trip reports here

I thought our scores were out of 5 though? so 4/5 = 8/10

Sorry. Multi-tasking.

Skytrax use out of 10, V-Flyer uses out of 5. By the same scale, ours should be 2/5 but when you look at the ratings, they seem to average out at 3.5/5.

I'm sure Pete can give an accurate figure, but as he's very busy at the moment, I won't bother him

This Virgin comment (Fergus) is interesting but ill-informed, and a SKYTRAX response is appropriate. Firstly, we do not treat reference to recent attempts at airline rating by TripAdvisor with any seriousness - said after many months of tracking and analysis of their airline scoring format. Being in the airline industry, we would expect Fergus to have a similar knowledge and be aware of industry opinion on this airline rating foray by TripAdvisor - driven by a desire to sell airline tickets. It is perplexing that Fergus has no grasp of the airline star ranking system. Senior management at Virgin have such knowledge for over 10 years, and ranking system procedures have been online for many years. Airline Star Rankings have no connection to customer reviews or surveys applied only after detailed in-house analysis by our audit dept. More seriously, Fergus clearly implies that posted SKYTRAX customer reviews do not relate honestly to reviews submitted by customers for his airline. Such accusation is wholly inaccurate and damaging, and unless we receive a request for such statement to be withdrawn, we will assume this represents a corporate statement made on behalf of his employer, Virgin Atlantic Airways. SKYTRAX are always receptive to fair critiscm, but when false or misleading accusations are made, we will seek the necessary rectification.

Could you be looking for details like these?

Personally I would treat the views on this site with nearly as much scepticism as other sites. People here, generally, like/love VS. Whereas on other sites people are more likely to moan about a bad experience, than comment on an average or positive experience.

Hi

Thanks for the comments to date. I'll check what the process is for XPlane thou I'm pretty sure it is random seat/random individual (ie a fixed number of surveys per cabin to get a significant sample, but allocated to a random list of seats which the crew (and passengers) have no control over, so it is a true random sample. Other airlines do similar. In future it is likely the survey will be integrated into the IFE which will remove the need for paper and processing and allow faster feedback on issues.

You may also see a new survey which IATA are running (http://www.AirSatisfaction.com). I saw it in action in SFO recently. A little card which contains a one-time code identifying the flight/date is handed to all or every other pax as they board thou the downside is you have to go to a website after landing to complete it, so many people will forget.

There is much we can still do to improve our product and service and some of this work is in progress, but we need to work to a good baseline of pax feedback else we won't know what to spend our limited budgets on. Eg we know we need to refurb the LGW fleet so this is already high on the list but aircraft interiors and IFE are expensive items so it takes time.

The Skytrax survey seems to be an outlier compared to similar surveys so that naturally raises questions. Maybe it is a truer picture and the other surveys are somehow adrift. Comments on this forum have implied that Skytrax comments can be heavily edited, thou others say their comments are posted verbatim, so with your help I am keen to see if there is a pattern. All customer feedback is valid and useful, providing it is true customer feedback.

rgds
Fergus
Virgin Atlantic eBusiness

PS plse also have a play with our new website pages and leave us some feedback - see Kyle's post elsewehere on the forum for details.

[Decker]

FWIW I've been given other seats' XPlanes to fill in when there was "no occupant" and I was obviously a happy camper - although in fairness I can't remember the last time I flew VS as a non-happy camper.

[Scrooge]

We could actually have a couple of good discussions on this subject, the first being do VS deserve a 3 star rating, the second being, what standing does Skytrax have with the flying public.

Ok <Mod hat off>

Does VS deserve a 3 star rating, pretty much, sadly VS has cut to deep up front, PE is still one of the best (but not even close to the best) and Y..... Well honestly, if I have to fly in Y VS would be one of my last choices.

As I have been pointing out for the last few years, the VS marketing will come back to bite them in the bum, you can't keep selling a product that does not match up to the marketing, you can for a while, but in the end people will figure it out.

In regards to Skytrax, sorry but I don't really trust their rating system.

Looking at the 5 star :

ASIANA is a good 4 star, but no where near a 5 star
HAINAN ok, seriously, how they came up with that I have no idea, go to A'Net, read the reviews, see the pictures, if VS is a 3 star then so is Hainan.

4 star, looking at the list of 32 airlines, I see 17 that could honestly be called 4 star, the rest are 3 star with a couple of them that make VS look like SQ.

Yes this site is dedicated to VS, but it is far from a love/like site, if anything we are overly critical of VS because most of us remember when VS really was a good 4 star airline.

Hi

As update, a gentleman from Skytrax has been in touch directly with me so he/I will work together to get to the bottom of any survey discrepancies.

Ref our call waiting times/email delays etc, we agree we need to be better here, so we have recently instigated a new live service chat facility which you will see on the Customer Relations page on our website. You will see a chat invitation appear when there are agents on hand to take chats. This is similar in principle to the live sales chat that you may have noticed on our booking pages.

The idea is to nip simpler queries in the bud on first contact. It's only a trial but initial results look good so hopefully we will extend this.

rgds
Fergus
Virgin Atlantic eBusiness

Hi

As update, a gentleman from Skytrax has been in touch directly with me so he/I will work together to get to the bottom of any survey discrepancies.

Ref our call waiting times/email delays etc, we agree we need to be better here, so we have recently instigated a new live service chat facility which you will see on the Customer Relations page on our website. You will see a chat invitation appear when there are agents on hand to take chats. This is similar in principle to the live sales chat that you may have noticed on our booking pages.

The idea is to nip simpler queries in the bud on first contact. It's only a trial but initial results look good so hopefully we will extend this.

rgds
Fergus
Virgin Atlantic eBusiness

You mentioned your onboard surveys earlier and how they score well.

I rec'd one a few weeks ago on board.

The problem with them are they ask specific questions and are multiple choice.
They don't really ask you in each section what could be better so therefore when you are collating the scores you are not going to consider this as the chance to give that true opinion is not there.

The other issue is that it was handed out after breakfast and on a transatlantic flight from the US I was tired and couldn't be bothered to write up my full opinion anyway. You will have taken a higher score off my card than what I actually thought because of the multiple choice format and my jet lag.

[Darren Wheeler]

I suspect that 85%+ of the complaints will be resolved when the refits take place on the LGW/MAN fleet.

Of the remaining 15%, at least half of them will never be happy even if it was a perfect flight.

Of the remaining 15%, at least half of them will never be happy even if it was a perfect flight.

I absolutly agree ! And whatever the cause of their 'issue' or the response to them they will still maintain that they were treated badly etc etc

But isn't "the brand" more than just new liveries and clean aircraft?

By way of example, you can pay a lot for a splendidly appointed hotel with all mod cons, or not very much on a seaside b&B that is family owned.

The first is more than likely highly efficient etc, whilst the seond is warm and friendly, and they are likely to remember you on a return visit.

My point is that the VS difference is being eroded - supber customer service, engaged fun staff, inovative features etc.

So, whilst that LGW/MAN flett is tired inside, it wouldn't matter so much if the VS difference were in evidence the vast majority of the time?

That said, I wonder how many of the passengers really care - they just want to get there and back for a good price, and will knock VS because they've "heard" VS are different and are good fun and so on.

I posted an interview with the CEO of Virgin Australia a short while back, and I'm of the opinion that he's on the right track.....to paraphrase one portion of the i/view, "an airline can't compete on multiple fronts and needs to focus on clearly defined customer groups".

Interesting debate, this one:D

I suspect that 85%+ of the complaints will be resolved when the refits take place on the LGW/MAN fleet.

Of the remaining 15%, at least half of them will never be happy even if it was a perfect flight.

Yeah, some people seem to go around looking for problems. Same with any business.

My flight 2 weeks ago was the first I've done VS from LGW (PE outwards), so I can see why people are less happy than with LHR. OTOH I knew the IFE was going to be no use so I had books and an iPod to occupy me and the time went quite fast.

Came back UC and didn't really see any difference in quality or service than previously to LHR.

So for me this didn't really change my perception of VS much if at all but it appears that a lot of other people are being more negative about the LGW flights.

Does this mean there are random factors involved and I was luckier than some? Like the complaints about broken seats I've seen maybe?

Martin

[Darren Wheeler]

The big difference is the type of passenger going through the airports.

LHR - on the whole, business travellers. They spend their time working, even if that's just reading documents emails. IFE is just a distraction. Others who may have meetings will sleep.

LGW - Broadly holiday routes and they want their and their childrens time filled by IFE

Hi

I checked with our experts and just to confirm the XPlane process to those of you who asked, a seat plan is randomly chosen by the research agency we use, and this is included with the pack of questionnaires. If someone is not in the seat (or a staff member is in the seat) then the FSM is instructed to hand to someone in same row, if this not possible then they hand to nearest passenger willing to complete it. The forms go back to the agency we use and they produce the reports.

From memory, I think the survey form also has a return address on it so if for any reason pax want to post the form back to the research agency themselves, they can do so.

So basically, the current system is probably as good as as fair as it is possible to get from a manual, paper based process. Many other airlines do similar. The main benefit is only pax who have actually flown with us can submit feedback, which is obviously not the case with most airline survey websites. The IATA survey is different as it uses a one-time code which is linked to the actual flight, so if you do get handed one of those survey cards as you board, plse do give it a go. Unfortunately though the IATA survey currently only covers about 30% of our routes so isn't a good enough subsitute for us yet.

Hope this helps.

rgds
Fergus

Hi

Ref our call waiting times/email delays etc, we agree we need to be better here, so we have recently instigated a new live service chat facility which you will see on the Customer Relations page on our website. You will see a chat invitation appear when there are agents on hand to take chats. This is similar in principle to the live sales chat that you may have noticed on our booking pages.

rgds
Fergus
Virgin Atlantic eBusiness

y) I really like the live chat facility in a customer service sense, not just sales. As you say Fergus, it's great for sorting out the quick questions and queries, thus increasing call capacity. Look forward to using this!

I dread to think what your average speed of answer rates are on calls and % abandoned.

If you get emails down to 24-48 hours response (not complaints) you'll immediately see a reduction in calls from people chasing quick answers.

My personal view is that the cabin crew can make or break a flight. Things do go wrong and break such as IFE/ seats/ food choice and it's the way the cabin crew handle it that can make all the difference.

I was once belittled by one member of cabin crew when asking if they were going to reset my IFE after waiting patiently for at least 30 mins having already previously spoken to the same crew member twice before when he said he'd get straight to it. He'd obviously forgotten and while serving food I mentioned it again and he said would I like him to stop serving everyone food so he could look at my IFE problem in a smarmy voice.

One of our best ever flights was when they only had the legal minimum amount of crew onboard!

Sickbag - you're dead right - and that was always a large part of the VS X-factor.

Regardless of whether you're a business or leisure traveller, this is true.

We've flown with Virgin out of Glasgow in 07, 08 and 09 and then unexpectedly back home with them this year (we had been due to fly home with US but philly was shut to weather and flights cancelled - another night in Orlando was no hardship) and only have two issues:

:: Since Globespan went bust in '09 the prices out of Glasgow are stupidly high and continue to be so for next year.
:: Coming home this time we were in 26 abc. Not long after take off one of the CC sat on the vacant 25a and leant over and closed my two windows and walked off! Four "excuse me's" the last being a shout as she had walked off into the galley I am able to ask "do i need to have my windows closed" and she replies 'its to stop brightness on their screen in front'. Never heard anything like it, never heard an apology for not even asking me in the first place. We've sat in the exit seats all years except 09 when we were PE and never had issues with light on the monitors. No issue had she asked me if i would mind closing the blind, but she never. The passenger hadnt even asked the CC to shut the blinds and as i left them open, the passenger never said anything anyway.

They were a bit of a strange couple - the husband asking the FSM "do we really have lifejackets and life cots for all the children" and a couple other questions related to the swimwear Virgin provide in the event of a swim in the atlantic. The last reply they got was "yes we do, but lets just put it this way, we wont be trying them out today, okay?"

Back to the matter in hand and we've always enjoyed a great experience with Virgin. The flight in '07 was taking off as the terrorists struck the airport, and on a day when we had minimum crew due to flooding in the northwest of England. One member of the crew was flying unsure if she would have a house when she flew home. The london based check in staff brought up for the flights that summer were also excellent.

We've flown on 6 of the LGW/MAN/GLA 747 fleet and nothing has got our attention in terms of wear and tear thats worth taking issue with. The IFE is perhaps out-dated compared to some, but its still a good system (we've never had a failure *touches wood*) and better than no system at all. Not seen the JAM system in action, but if in the future they get a system like that on the CO 757 I'd be more than happy!

The experience coming home this year was arguably one of our best, including silly little touches you just dont expect - slices of lemon in the cokes, sweets before landing (dont think we've had that since Britannia in 2000), and the food was something else, which I wasnt really expecting coming from PE back in 09.

Some of the complaints on Skytrax do seem trivial to most, and we would certainly recommend VS to anyone.

You mentioned your onboard surveys earlier and how they score well.

I rec'd one a few weeks ago on board.

The problem with them are they ask specific questions and are multiple choice.
They don't really ask you in each section what could be better so therefore when you are collating the scores you are not going to consider this as the chance to give that true opinion is not there.

The other issue is that it was handed out after breakfast and on a transatlantic flight from the US I was tired and couldn't be bothered to write up my full opinion anyway. You will have taken a higher score off my card than what I actually thought because of the multiple choice format and my jet lag.

I think its true that the Xplane surveys over-rate the experience. I have completed a few and on at least 2 occasions these have been when I was upgraded or had done an airport miles upgrade. It may be random, or that I fly a fair bit and am more likely to receive them over time, but I have been (unfairly?) suspicious because a response from someone in a cabin class better than they expected is always happier. If I was an FSM, I would like my ratings to be high so I'd give a few out to those people.
[Anti-conspiracy theorists shoot me down in flames if you wish]
If Fergus is correct and it is always completely random, then ISTBC.

The missing part in these questionnaires - which is discussed widely here - is the gradual degradation of the VS experience.

If they had some questions like:

How do you feel the amenity kit has changed over time? What in particular do you miss the most? (clues: polos, lip balm, moisturiser, drinks round, ice creams ...)

Do you think the IFE is.... world class and ahead of its time / up-to-date / barely acceptable / my HMV gramaphone was better ?

Should a reboot of the IFE take .... 10 minutes / 20 minutes / 1 hour / I didn't really want to watch that film anyway

Did the peeling paint outside concern you .. a lot / a little / No problem, I'd like to come round at the weekend for a painting party?

....I'm sure there would be different answers, but the sort of questions you get tend to extract answers that are medium to good from most of the people most of the time.

Having said all this, I'm still loyal and generally enjoy the VS experience in all 3 classes (in different ways) - fortunately mostly on the LHR fleet. My desire to maintain AU status also clouds my vision and means I don't look elsewhere for cheaper or better alternatives.

Friday night ramble over....

Total coincidence but I did an e-rewards questionairre yesterday on travel and lots of questions about airlines (including VS) and my thoughts about them including factors such as value for money, service quality, 'fun' etc etc and how I rated them. Also if I thought of various airlines and if I thought their service as 'traditional', 'innovative' or 'not as innovative as they used to be'.

The only time I recall beoing given a xplane form was when I upgraded from PE to UC at LHR.

I think at least one poster here said they were going to post a positive TR on Skytrax. This thread began on 27 July. Since then there are three TR on Skytrax which give VS 8 or more out of 10 but they are already outweighed by more recent critical ones.

You can't please all of the people all of the time, and some people are totally impossible to please at ANY time, but, as I tried to indicate earlier in this thread, the steady stream of negative reports makes it easy to pick out common themes which go way beyond individual gripes or unreasonableness. Cleanliness of the planes is a good example.

I am mildly concerned if the official response to all this is simply to say that they are happy with their own feedback! (Not to mention the questioning of Skytrax.) That sounds like denial to me.

What I don't understand is people complaining about drink runs. Most VS flights I've been on have multiple drink runs and if I would like a drink and someone isn't around, I get up and walk to the galley and ask. How difficult is that? I've never been refused and the crew were only too happy to get me a drink.

Some people in Economy must expect to be waited on hand and foot. I saw one review complaining that he had to go to the water fountain himself!