Up until recently I worked for Virgin Atlantic, I worked as crew for 21 years. I was proud, I loved Virgin, I loved my job, I loved you our customers.
Covid 19 is nothing the airline could control and redundancy was inevitable and preventable. What was preventable was the way virgin treated its staff.
I was in the top 25% of my rank, I was invited to an event called the incredibles and event for the top performers in the airline. I was part of promotions, I crewed inaugural flights. I was invited to take part in workshops. My score given to me by my colleagues was 4.7 out of 5. The score given to me by customers was 78% generated by what customers say on the survey’s they get sent after flights. I was well respected. I worked hard on every single flight despite destination or aircraft type. All good so far.
However because I worked mainly on the 787 with decent ife etc compared to the 600 or 330 camera were mainly happy. When it came to redundancy Virgin said they were going to use voice of customer (the same I’d the surveys you get sent) to say who was being made redundant. Other things including sickness etc was used to.
However because Virgin knew some crew were getting poor scores because of aircraft type and destination they normalised everyone’s score. Which meant my score was lowered because it was too high and other peoples was made higher than what they had.
I went from being in the top 25% of my rank to being in the bottom 50% which meant I was classed as underperforming. Not once in my career was I told I was under performing. I had a good sickness recorded and no other blemishes on my file.
Some of the comments made my customers that I got made redundant for were things totally out of my control and comments made about crew without my name even being mentioned. Things like my leg room was poor, my first meal choice was not available, my entertainment didn’t work, the seat, my bad didn’t arrive. They ran out of alcohol, they stopped serving me alcohol, they said I was drunk, my flight was delayed.
I was made redundant along with other very experienced crew who were top performing crew. The majority were long serving crew over the age of 40. We cost more, we got more leave, we were too expensive. So they got rid of us and they kept underperforming crew and kept crew with very little experience. They even kept crew who have not even completed their training.
Virgin say they care about their staff they do not. I was not even sent a thank you for your service email from my manager on my last day. I’d been there 21 years.
They made some crew redundant then admitted they had made a mistake and said they were not redundant then made them redundant again.
They are a shambles. They are currently making crew do fights where they work one way then travel back on the same fight as a passenger without even giving the crew food or a place to change in the airport. They are sending crew to pvg and la for one night. The crew that are left are saying they are starting to feel exhausted. It’s an accident waiting to happen.
The airline we all loved and knew is dead. They don’t care about their staff and they have little respect for what Virgin is. The current ceo and the vp of cabin are people who are only interested in themselves. The lies they tell are disgusting.
Think about who you want to give your money to next time you fly. Think about they treated crew and next you complete a survey think about how it could affect people. If you have a complaint write to Virgin don’t use a survey because Virgin will play dirty games with it.
Most loved travel company should be most disliked travel company.
Red on the inside should be dead on the inside.
Covid 19 is nothing the airline could control and redundancy was inevitable and preventable. What was preventable was the way virgin treated its staff.
I was in the top 25% of my rank, I was invited to an event called the incredibles and event for the top performers in the airline. I was part of promotions, I crewed inaugural flights. I was invited to take part in workshops. My score given to me by my colleagues was 4.7 out of 5. The score given to me by customers was 78% generated by what customers say on the survey’s they get sent after flights. I was well respected. I worked hard on every single flight despite destination or aircraft type. All good so far.
However because I worked mainly on the 787 with decent ife etc compared to the 600 or 330 camera were mainly happy. When it came to redundancy Virgin said they were going to use voice of customer (the same I’d the surveys you get sent) to say who was being made redundant. Other things including sickness etc was used to.
However because Virgin knew some crew were getting poor scores because of aircraft type and destination they normalised everyone’s score. Which meant my score was lowered because it was too high and other peoples was made higher than what they had.
I went from being in the top 25% of my rank to being in the bottom 50% which meant I was classed as underperforming. Not once in my career was I told I was under performing. I had a good sickness recorded and no other blemishes on my file.
Some of the comments made my customers that I got made redundant for were things totally out of my control and comments made about crew without my name even being mentioned. Things like my leg room was poor, my first meal choice was not available, my entertainment didn’t work, the seat, my bad didn’t arrive. They ran out of alcohol, they stopped serving me alcohol, they said I was drunk, my flight was delayed.
I was made redundant along with other very experienced crew who were top performing crew. The majority were long serving crew over the age of 40. We cost more, we got more leave, we were too expensive. So they got rid of us and they kept underperforming crew and kept crew with very little experience. They even kept crew who have not even completed their training.
Virgin say they care about their staff they do not. I was not even sent a thank you for your service email from my manager on my last day. I’d been there 21 years.
They made some crew redundant then admitted they had made a mistake and said they were not redundant then made them redundant again.
They are a shambles. They are currently making crew do fights where they work one way then travel back on the same fight as a passenger without even giving the crew food or a place to change in the airport. They are sending crew to pvg and la for one night. The crew that are left are saying they are starting to feel exhausted. It’s an accident waiting to happen.
The airline we all loved and knew is dead. They don’t care about their staff and they have little respect for what Virgin is. The current ceo and the vp of cabin are people who are only interested in themselves. The lies they tell are disgusting.
Think about who you want to give your money to next time you fly. Think about they treated crew and next you complete a survey think about how it could affect people. If you have a complaint write to Virgin don’t use a survey because Virgin will play dirty games with it.
Most loved travel company should be most disliked travel company.
Red on the inside should be dead on the inside.
