V-Flyer

Note:
Have flown Virgin Atlantic for approx. 10 years annually to Barbados and have noticed the difference in service during those years.

Checking in:
We used the day before checkin facility at Gatwick before residing for the night at the Hilton Gatwick hotel. Check-in was efficient, no queue with a friendly and helpful agent. Things were looking up and a vast improvement over previous years.

Departure from Gatwick:
Boarding commenced on time but push back was delayed due to checked in passengers deciding not to join the aircraft resulting in their bags needing unloading. Understandable and outwith the control of Virgin Atlantic. And that is all what was good about this flight.

Seat:
Showing its age. It could have had a better clean. It looked grubby.

Entertainment:
For an airline that claims to lead the market, it is just not acceptable to have a looped entertainment system without the ability to pause/play/rewind/start whenever you want. Add to that the ackward position of the controls and it is no wonder that the cabin crew buttons kept being pressed in error by passengers.

Food and drink:
Gone is the pre-dinner drinks service. Food was served about 90 minutes into the flight with an offer of a drink. The food tray seems to get smaller and smaller each year with the quality of the food not improving at all. Ice cream offered later in the flight with a sandwich just a couple of hours before landing. No further drinks service offered at all. That never used to be the case. Looks like in order to save a penny or two they discourage passengers drinking (so much for their spiel on keeping hydrated ) with said passengers having to find a member of staff in the galley......

Cabin Crew:
Best descibed as lazy and that is putting it politely. Rushing to get the main meal service done, rush the duty free and then hiding in the galleys with the curtains closed. Requests for drinks from the galley were adhered to with raised eyebrowes like you were bothering them with the icing on the cake being refused a drink with the terse reply to go back to the seat as they were going to serve sandwiches soon with drinks- and that happened two hours after said polite request for a drink and the drink offered only included tea or coffee and not the orange juice we wanted.

Given the shambles of the flight we were ever so glad that we didn't part with any more our hard earned money to upgrade to upper class which we were seriously considering.

Must do much better Virgin!

Mark

Thank you for the TR, sorry to hear that you had a poor experience.