VS020 SFO-LHR 25 Feb 08 (Upper)

This is a Trip Report from the Upper Class cabin

Ground Staff

Food & Drink

Entertainment

Seat

Cabin Crew

Anyone insulting South London had best watch themselves, as I am likely to glass them but good.

As an original member of the Tremadoc Road Massive, believe me when I say this.

GJ

I do believe you GJ. You're very convincing.

Finally got a reply to my complaint about this guy. Am I wrong to think that taking over three weeks to come up with this bit of fluff is just adding insult to injury?

Thank you for taking the time to contact us.

I'm concerned to read of your recent experiences on your flight back from San Francisco.

I understand you felt we treated you and the other passengers in an inappropriate way on your flight. I can imagine how upsetting this was for you, and I'm sorry.

We like to be as spontaneous and fun as we can with our customers and our colleagues. I'm sure [FSM name removed] never meant any harm in the comments he put forward. We do realise that sometimes it's just not appropriate to behave in certain ways.

We train our staff to be warm, friendly and polite in any situation. We clearly fell short of both your expectations and ours on this occasion.

We take this kind of behaviour very seriously. I've passed your comments on to the manager responsible for the member of staff you wrote about, to make sure we get things right next time.

On a more positive note, we're glad you found [CC name removed] to be helpful and attentive to your needs. I'm sure she'll be grateful for your praise that I've passed onto her.

We're sorry we disappointed you on this flight. I hope that the next time you fly with us you'll have a more enjoyable experience.

Kind regards



[Name removed]
Customer Relations Executive

Honestly, I read that, and felt like I'd just been given the brush off. That's their response to a complaint from a Gold Flying Club member travelling in UC to a complaint of rudeness, unprofessionallism, offensive comments and a bullying and denigrating attitude to other Virgin employees? Never mind the fact that his excuse for not knowing where on the plane our seats were was his 'heavy weekend' - if that had been a member of my staff I'd be taking disciplinary action.

My instinctive response was that I feel absolutely no desire ever to give VS another penny of my money. And that last line killed me - she couldn't even be bothered to check that I'd already flown with them again three times since.

Any other views? Am I over-reacting? Is this actually a reasonable response from Virgin?

[RichardMannion]

Hi Jon,

That's an abortion of a reply - CR need to wake up from their long coma, and fast. Was it marked as from SRB's office at all (it should have been handled by them as an Au/UC pax)?

I'd call them and ask to speak to SRB's office, and get them to do the groundwork of checking your flight habits and history.

[preiffer]

Jon, to help get my head around whether the 'remedy' was suitable, can I ask what you feel *would* have been a suitable response?

What were you looking for in the reply?

Honestly - just some more acknowledgement that what I'd complained about was more than a misjudgement of tone, which is what I took away from the pargraph starting 'We like to be...'.

Despite the 'we take this seriously' comment, this response doesn't feel to me as though they did. And it certainly doesn't feel like a response that should have taken over three weeks to cobble together.

And Richard, no, this was just an email from the Customer Service Exec, no indication of any particularly different handling.

What a pathetic response! Shows that even the most loyal customers comments about a show of total unprofessionalism are not taken seriously, or even god forbid acted upon![V]

I've never flown UC but alarm bells would be ringing even if I was in Economy and my FSM refered to me as a 'lad' and told me about his heavy weekend! This implies that he is not in the appropriate physical condition to be fit to fly. I don't expect to be called 'sir' but 'lad' is football manager speak.

I'm all for witty quips and even a bit of good natured banter. For example when we landed at Vegas last summer and were stuck on the aircraft because of gate availability, the cabin crew member who took the chance to inform passengers about the activities/shows etc available in Vegas made some really good, light-hearted comments which lifted the mood.
However, the Irish and South London comments just make him sound bigoted to me, and almost David Brent esque in their level of cringeworthiness. If you don't know your audience, making such comments is always going to risk offending people.

The fact is that in 99% of organisations such behaviour would be regarded as a disciplinary issue and treated as such, so why is Virgin trying to pass this off as 'just the way we are'?[:?]

Lucky for VAA that BA are having such fun with T5 or I'd be looking to maybe switch airlines.....

Not a good experience in the first place, and the reply is a shocking example of how to alienate your customers.

What a joke