V-Flyer

As you have most likely seen, VS have introduced 2 new flights a week to BGI which depart on a friday and saturday with good flight times - leave UK at 12:00 and leave BGI at 20:55. I managed to get a reward seat on one of these from BGI to LGW in November but at the moment there are only less than 10 seats allocated on that flight. Having checked the outbound from LGW on that day, there are also only 4 seats allocated. Since it is a 747 scheduled, I think it highly unlikely that they will operate these flights (!)......is that the case, or does anyone know anything I don't?

My main concern is being bumped to the "usual" earlier flight and ending up in a middle seat on an overnight flight - currently I have an upstairs exit seat. I would happily upgrade to PE with miles (I have a voucher to use) but there are no seats available

Never use the seat map as a guide to how busy a flight is. It’s not at all accurate as many people don’t select seats in advance, particularly in Y where many have to pay extra.

In addition, even if one leg of a rotation is very quiet the other may not be so I would expect your flights to operate as scheduled.

Both legs are very quiet though, that's my concern! The fact that only 4 seats are allocated on the whole flight from LGW-BGI and 9 seats on BGI-LGW concerns me. I appreciate that there may be more bookings than that, but with it being a new flight, unless a whole pile of cruise passengers are suddenly transferred to the flight I can't see it operating

Please ignore what seats are available on the seat maps! They are not a good indicator of the final flight load for all sorts of reasons.

There may very well be a block booking for a cruise or wedding party or whatever but group bookings only get their seats allocated in the days running upto departure for example.

Remember there are more to flights than passengers. Airines carry a huge amount of cargo as well. And there may be cotractual issues that require a flight to operate no matter what the passenger loads are if there are government or airport subsidies invovled for example.

If there is a ligher load VS are more lkely to close the upper deck and move passengers downstairs than cancel a flight.

I was looking at these flights for yesterday as want to go somewhere in November and was thinking the same thing which put me off booking. Had a look today and they seems to have disappeared - this was for the weekends 9/16 November.

Jilly

Still showing on ExpertFlyer but showing Zero availability in all classes

I'm flying BGI-LGW on VS58 on 29th Nov. What's it showing for that flight?

Just been in and tried to make a dummy booking and my flight doesn't come up as an option, although according to my booking I am still on the VS58.....oh dear. Wonder how long it will be before I am told it isn't running

I stand to be corrected, but believe these flights are being run by Virgin to provide capacity for P&O Cruises' winter season hence Friday and Saturday only.

IIRC, P&O used to charter 2 to 3 TCX aircraft every Friday/Saturday. Tui have offered up one additional 787 leaving a capacity gap.

Well as I predicted I was moved off VS58. Received an email saying there was a schedule change on my flight......not exactly, you've moved me onto the earlier flight (4 hours earlier) and I've lost my exit seat, now sitting in the middle. This is the 3rd consecutive time I have been moved out of an exit seat by VS and I'm really not happy. Phone call to Flying Club (as it is a reward flight) was fruitless, they referred me to customer relations. Call to customer relations was fruitless, they referred me to flying club and told me there was no way to escalate my complaint. No offer of looking at other flights on nearby dates, nothing. There is a lot of revenue availability on the 27th so I am keeping an eye out in case a PE or UC reward seat pops up.

I'm just really fed up that each time I have booked an exit seat I've ended up in a bog standard seat. Once I could understand, but 3 times in a row is just not on.