VS016 MCO-LGW 12 Dec 07 (Econ)

This is a Trip Report from the Economy cabin

Ground Staff

Food & Drink

Entertainment

Seat

Cabin Crew

After 9 awesome days in Orlando it was time to go home [n]

We arrived to do Downtown Disney Checkin at 10am and were amazed, NO QUEUE!!! We had our boarding passes in under 5 minutes and were told the flight was delayed an hour so we had even more time, awesome! Full credit to VA for DTD Check In!

Dropped the car back around 5pm and after lingering in the terminal went airside to wait. After a couple of Starbucks we found out the flight was delayed for 2 hours but as the crew kept everyone informed this was fine.

On boarding we found out the flight was 3/4 empty so empty seats everywhere, so even though the seats were the old economy style and a bit rustic, we were able to spread out a bit.

Drinks came round nearly every hour which was a huge difference to the outbound flight and the crew were great. Emma's gluten free meal turned up about 1:30hrs into the flight and the even brought me a meal at the same time so we could eat together. When Em unwrapped her meal it was salmon which she hates. She is used to getting dodgy airline food so didn't say anything. But, when the stewardess came past she just asked how the meal was as she seemed genuinely interested because of the special meal. Not wanting to cause a fuss Emma said fine, but the lady mentioned if she didn't like the fish she would check for something else. 10 mins later she came back and offered a Jacket Potato and Chicken from the Upper Class menu!! [:0] Godsmacked is not the word and was such a nice gesture so Emma actually managed to eat OK on a flight for once.

Rest of the flight was fine and we landed about 10am.

Have to say, apart from the old plane, this was the best economy flight I've had. The crew were simply superb, first class and completely made the flight. Wish I new there names so I could send a letter to VA to thank them.

Anyway, as I am out of miles now and have stopped collecting them this is probably my last VA flight so was good to go out like this.

Next flight will most likely be a one-way to Brisbane sometime this year [:D] Yey!

[HighFlyer]

Its always good to read of other people's positive experiences. It sounds like you and Emma had a great flight, partly helped i think by your positive attitudes to everything. I'm impressed to read that your crew really cared about Emma's special meal and ensured that you could both eat together. It really makes all the difference to receive those personal touches.

If you do want to write a letter in to customer services and mention your flight number and date with a rough description of the crew that served you they should be identified and the praise passed on to them.

Thanks,
Sarah

As Sarah has said, send a letter to Virgin Atlantic (or use their online Flight Feedback form when signed into your Flying Club account) and mention your seat number / flight date / what you remember about the crew & the feedback should get to them.

I did an online feedback via my Flying Club account for my last Upper Class flight and got a letter back from customer relations stating the names of the FSM & two Upper Class cabin crew who my comments had been passed on to.

Thanks
James

Also a tip, whilst on board you can ask for the FSM to bring you a heroes form. GREAT TR

Like HF and Kraken have said, write the letter / fill in the on-line form. I did so after a flight to BOS earlier this year where the cc did just a very little thing that made the flight special and Customer Relations wrote back with a (non template!) letter giving the names of the cc and saying my comments had been passed on.

Also, thanks for the TR. I think it would be an interesting experiment to set up a pair of trips where one was older plane / poor IFE / good service and the other new aircraft / V-Port / poor service and see which was rated more highly.

Paul

hi, glad you had a great flight, can i just piont out that the jacket potato will have come from the crews' own supply of food, as they don't have jacket in upper and a hero's form is good but a letter into the company is much better as the crew could get pionts towards a promotion for this, whereas they wouldn't for a hero's form. but glad to see a fab TR from Y

Thanks for the TR - makes good reading.

I am on a LGW- MCO flight early Feb and now aim to use DTD Checkin following your review; also hope we get great cabin crew as you seem to have had (have flown alot on my own over the past few weeks/months and the crew have mostly been superb but it is even more important when I take the 'tribe' with me and for 3 of them it will be their Virgin UCS VS flight so first impressions count!).

Also thanks johnvscrew for you tips. I really like ensuring excellent service is rewarded and will certainly write in whenever I encouter it in future rather than just use Hero nomination.

Regards and Happy New Year to all

HG