Freedom Menu

[Darren Wheeler]

I'm with Pete and Scrooge on not really missing the Freedom part, but have used it occasionally. As a bit of a gannet I tend to eat as and when it's offered (quick or hungry mode). I do agree that there will be much more wastage without Freedom than with as those who have eaten in the clubhouse out of necessity won’t eat at the “designated meal time” (I’m 40-something, not 7 and can decide for myself when I want to eat) and that food will get wasted.

[preiffer]

...as long as they don't make yet another assssssumption and load less meals on in general, in the hope that people who ate in the clubhouse won't want a meal at all onboard...?

That's going to be a shock when more people don't get the meal they want. Ouch...

[Darren Wheeler]

...as long as they don't make yet another assssssumption and load less meals on in general, in the hope that people who ate in the clubhouse won't want a meal at all onboard...?

That's going to be a shock when more people don't get the meal they want. Ouch...

Shhhhh. Walls have ears

[honey lamb]

The other thing that seems to have been ignored/overlooked is how we mix and match different components of the menu which of course adds to the wastage.

On occasions I have had a starter served as a main course either because I haven't liked the main course or because I was bored with the main course (hands up those who remember the "irradiated mash" as part of the menu which lasted for six months because VS changed the caterers!); I've had a starter from the Light Bites menu because I wasn't enamoured with any of the starter choices; I've had two desserts as I couldn't decide between the two and the cabin crew suggested that I have both; I've had starter and dessert because I didn't like the main course and I wasn't really hungry. From that aspect one could call it a Freedom menu. However one of the things I have noticed, but haven't done, is see that on nearly every one of my flights and especially on the so-called business flights is that there is at least one person who is availing of the option to dine later

[mitchja]

Another thing that also seems to have been over-looked in all this is that many VS outposts don't have full CH facilities or offer full meal options so sometimes you have no option other than to eat on the flight.

I get the feeling VS assume many J pax eat before they board on flights back to the UK. I'm not sure if this is often the case though? Food options at MIA and MCO for example (there are probably more) are very minimal in the lounges there.

Kiwibrit,

Thank you for responding on behalf of VS but what a load of rubbish. Although I have nothing new to add I'm still adding my voice.

Freedom & Graze are not the same thing. Thanks for the Virgin spin on Freedom still being available though. ii) This annoys me more than anything, you tell us you've listened to our feedback but then insult us by giving us the same line from your spin/advertising on this new great meal service.

Xplane surveys really are a load of rubbish, one of your colleagues banged on about them on here before. They don't ask the questions that matter and after a long haul flight I bet most people can't be bothered to do a write up for you in the free comments section. I base this on my own experience of having had these surveys.

I don't really need to add to the cheese trolley, if it was done properly with a selection of cheeses cut for you at the time then all well and good but to come round with pre-plated cheese is very tacky.

[Pete]

I've droned on about this thing before, but I take a pretty dim view of the Xplane questionnaires, since at the end of the day they're bingo-card surveys. Firstly, you are given a pre-defined set of questions with a narrow set of answers, and then you are given so many to answers inevitably human nature kicks in and responses are 'tick' 'tick' 'tick' just to get to the bottom of the form. And, as in the case with the Xplane questionnaires, give someone an incentive to fill in the form (such as winning a couple of tickets somewhere), their only motivation is to complete the form regardless of what the responses are.

If Virgin are putting serious stock into the Xplane responses (and it sounds like they are), they probably ought to be doing a bit more research into the psychology of motivation. There's a highly entertaining series of books called Freakonomics which highlights this sort of stuff. It's also why ratings on V-Flyer are linked to verbose trip reports, not just a 1-5 rating in isolation.

Interesting post Pete.

I have lots of issues re these types of surveys, and the motivation behind them.

My company used to do staff surveys...

1) Rate 1 to 5 - equals very disatisfied, disatisfied, neither, satisfied, very satisfied. A lot of folks will go for 3 if they have no strong feeling, and this can be included in the analysis as "not disatisfied" - i.e., satisfied.

2) Doing a survey - just to say they've done one. It's good spin to be able to say, we've surveyed our customers/employees and they've told us.......when put together with the spin factor, gives a good headline/spin.

3) Decisions can be based on survey results, and as we all know, stats can be twisted to say most things.

Essentially, they are as much use as the motivation of the surveyor allows

I had a discussion with a BA AU who's only ever flown VS once and that was several years ago (and interestingly he's the one that convinced me to try VS UC). He said the service was absolutely fabulous from the limo service to the washbag (which doesn't exist anymore) and the freedom menu which allowed him to nap and wake up without having to feel that he was begging for food.

I may have missed your point, but if VS was so fabulous it sounds like it wasn't enough to make him switch? Is that more representative of VS's challenges?

I had a discussion with a BA AU who's only ever flown VS once and that was several years ago (and interestingly he's the one that convinced me to try VS UC). He said the service was absolutely fabulous from the limo service to the washbag (which doesn't exist anymore) and the freedom menu which allowed him to nap and wake up without having to feel that he was begging for food.

I may have missed your point, but if VS was so fabulous it sounds like it wasn't enough to make him switch? Is that more representative of VS's challenges?

The point is that it's a service factor that made someone who's not a VS FF recommend the airline. The reason he doesn't fly VS is that he prefers to sit in the bubble of the 747s and VS doesn't fly those on our route

I had a discussion with a BA AU who's only ever flown VS once and that was several years ago (and interestingly he's the one that convinced me to try VS UC). He said the service was absolutely fabulous from the limo service to the washbag (which doesn't exist anymore) and the freedom menu which allowed him to nap and wake up without having to feel that he was begging for food.

I may have missed your point, but if VS was so fabulous it sounds like it wasn't enough to make him switch? Is that more representative of VS's challenges?

The point is that it's a service that made someone who's not a VS FF recommend the airline.

Not for the first time (e.g. the recent PE/Y bubble affair... ahem) I think that some people here are confusing this forum's membership with the VS customer base as a whole. We are a self-selecting bunch of people who have an interest in flying and the nitty gritty detail of service, seats, status, and mileage accumulation. We might believe what we believe very passionately, and for very good reasons. But we might also be untypical, and indeed our loyalty to VS might paradoxically make us less important -- they will be looking for incremental changes to win new custom whilst retaining the old, and unless people are going to stop flying VS because of all of this they will presumably have gambled correctly.

Anyway... my next UC flight is in a couple of weeks. I look forward to trying it all out...

I'm inclined to agree with a lot of what has been said on this thread about VS marketing vs reality, but at240's point above about who we are -- a very small percentage of the VS total passenger population -- illuminates an interesting perspective.

I guess that many of the J passengers do not frequent forums like this. They just get on and go with the flow: board, drink, eat, get pleasantly pampered, sleep, eat, get off.

I find the VS Upper Class service is generally very good, the crew typically young, attentive, happy to engage, mostly attractive and female (in my experience - and I don't mean to be sexist). The FSMs mostly female and a little more matronly - hard working, very obliging, entertaining and interesting to talk to.
[Mods - I hope I have not broken any rules - feel free to bleep me out if I have]

I have just been to Sydney and back so experienced 4 J segments in the last 4 weeks - two with the old service and two with the new. The crew are aware the new service is just that, so they asked for feedback if we had any observations about how it worked from a customer perspective. So there was demonstrable customer centricity (?!) in the air, if not at Crawley Towers. Here's my view on the new service.

► The new champagne glasses - stylish, different, a little easier to spill or slop out so there is an incentive to drink it faster!

► Amuse bouche - nice touch, tasty and was described correctly to me.

► Salt & Pepper - sad to see Wilbur and Orville go, but the new cocktail shaker is fine, I prefer crushed pepper anyway. It must be much easier for the crew to deal with for storage of these. Its a 2 in 1 unit and they now drop neatly into boxes of ~50 whereas the older W&O set used to have to be put carefully on trays and then covered in cling film to stop them falling over. The new one has "Shaken not Stirred" in tiny writing under the Virgin Atlantic logo on the bottom so they have not lost their sense of fun

► Table runner - A girlie thing (similar to cushions IMHO), my wife liked it - stylish and different, I did not find it offensive! (See pic below)

► Flexibility - I asked for two starters before sleeping on one flight. It was no trouble and I received exactly what I wanted, when I wanted it. I had soup followed by Lo shui prawns (pic below)

► The Graze menu - I did not use, but my wife passed on the main meal service to sleep early then went to the bar later and had a couple of coffees plus the salmon, spinach and mushroom pancake from the Graze menu. She said it was delicious and quite filling.

► The cheese trolley - a bit gimmicky, but worked for me. I got cheese and port! Lets be realistic - we are in a cabin with 50 or so fellow travellers not at Le Gavroche, so they are not going to cut a slice from a big round of runny Reblochon or Stinking Bishop.

► The cheese or tea trolley in the aisle - On a 10 or 12 hour flight having to wait 10 minutes for a passing trolley or having walk the length of the cabin to avoid it is not a great hardship.

I filled in an Xplane questionnaire on the last segment and I do agree that it is largely a waste of time. At that point you just want to fill in the boxes and hope to win £250. You can make some points - I gave the amenity kit a <French Accent> "nul points", but most of the other items are good to average, with a bit of excellent for the crew sections when they have been customer focussed and attentive. As indeed they were on that last flight.

Am I thinking of moving to BA or a US carrier? No, My Au card, the extra miles and the LHR *clubhouse access that gives me, will keep me loyal for some time to come. (*I fly EC and PE mostly)

As Pete notes, YMMV. We are after all a bit different from each other. Thats what makes this discussion so interesting.

Cheers

Martin

Table set for two for dinner - chez 10A

Lo shui prawn starter

[Darren Wheeler]

Love the look of that starter. y)

wow huge prawns!

wow huge prawns!

Or small plate? :w

[Pete]

Like your summary Martin, and thanks for those photos. The bar runner does look pretty stylish.

For me though, this sums it up. "Lets be realistic - we are in a cabin with 50 or so fellow travellers not at Le Gavroche, so they are not going to cut a slice from a big round of runny Reblochon or Stinking Bishop."

Nicely put.

[preiffer]

Knowing the size of the salt shaker - they're not huge prawns...

For me though, this sums it up. "Lets be realistic - we are in a cabin with 50 or so fellow travellers not at Le Gavroche, so they are not going to cut a slice from a big round of runny Reblochon or Stinking Bishop."
Nicely put.

Completely agree - so DON'T market it as if the "innovations" deliver just that.


FACT: VS has become "just another business class". It used to be something different. They used to stand for innovation. They no longer do, and therefore have given up the right to claim they are. End of story.

preiffer.. it seems you are the most upset by the changes that have been made is there any reason for it?

its just every post i have read either on here or book has a negative comment. is there anything you do like?

preiffer.. it seems you are the most upset by the changes that have been made is there any reason for it?

its just every post i have read either on here or book has a negative comment. is there anything you do like?

I wouldn't say that is true, he has often posted positive comments on Facebook. And it's not as is the negative comments are baseless.

I don't understand why you keep telling people not to be negative, and to look at everything from a positive angle? Anything you don't like ?| (apart from negativity)

[preiffer]

preiffer.. it seems you are the most upset by the changes that have been made is there any reason for it?

its just every post i have read either on here or book has a negative comment. is there anything you do like?

Actually, along with a few other things, I think the crew are fantastic - world class. In recent times, I can't fault them. They really do have the spirit of what VS used to stand for at heart.

Just a shame those at the heart of VS no longer seem to have the same.

preiffer.. it seems you are the most upset by the changes that have been made is there any reason for it?

its just every post i have read either on here or book has a negative comment. is there anything you do like?

Actually, along with a few other things, I think the crew are fantastic - world class. In recent times, I can't fault them. They really do have the spirit of what VS used to stand for at heart.

Just a shame those at the heart of VS no longer seem to have the same.

I guess that's the disadvantage of growing. It's tough to be big and quirky. I guess in trying to expand, a lot of core values will be lost and that will sadly continue as VS grows until it becomes just another airline. Don't get me wrong, the VS Experience is stilll great but it's no longer "industry leading"

If the Facebook team is anything to go by, then there's clearly a bit of a disconnect somewhere. e.g. Howard stated on a recent thread "We do like to think that we are still 'ahead of the game'".

For what little worth my comment is, I do believe VS is if not in the leading pack it is still ahead of the game in many ways:

- CC - the best.
- Suite - still great and looking forward to the new UCS.
- Service for the most frequent flyers is top notch.
- Clubhouse - the best.

I'll be testing the new service another six times in the coming three weeks so will see if things are snappier.

But, little things do irritate like the stupid no hot drinks when the captain has spoken ... and too much complete twaddle in the marketing promotion!

With all the things happening this year, there's a lot to talk about, see happen, and hopefully move up a notch or two, let's recall:

- New planes, new IFE.
- LGW fleet refits.
- Y meal service changes.
- New UCS coming.
- New UC meal service.
- New JFK clubhouse.
- New routes to Vancouver and Cancun
- San Francisco additional flights.
- Back to Mumbai.
- The FC mileage changes for upgrades (under valued in my opinion and simply fantastic).
- New web site (well, patchy and navigationally confusing at the moment)!

That's not a bad list to start with in the first three months of the year!

I have been reading all these comments quite avidly since we are taking our first UC flight next month - so therefore won't have anything to compare to.

I am getting the impression that as long as the crew are good - we will have a great time, although maybe not so much the 'experience' we would have had if we had flown say 5 years ago...

BTW, just wondering if anyone has posted a full inbound and outbound menu yet - we are flying LAX if that makes any difference.

I can see that the thread 'Tink's Big Fat Winter Menu Thread - UK-USA (All Cabins)' hasn't been updated yet?

I am getting the impression that as long as the crew are good - we will have a great time, although maybe not so much the 'experience' we would have had if we had flown say 5 years ago...

You will! I don't know what fare code you're using nor whether you have CH access via status, but don't forget to add into the mix the non flight component of the whole experience, starting with using DTCI....