V-Flyer

I was more happy with the return trip (VS301, A346, 18 JAN 2012, PE 20K, seq 2), so if you don't want to hear some bellyaching, please skip down a bit...

OUTBOUND...

I am usually on the ball about OLCI but I after a busy day, I completely forgot about it until about T-20 (midnight), hence SEQ45 for my negligence. I do hope that VS come up with a BMI-like boarding card thingy for smartphones someday soon. On the day of travel, I was at the airport in 14 minutes (one benefit of living in Windsor!) and about 2hrs before the scheduled departure time.

I do love the T3 set-up, but during late-evening, the check-in area resembles a battery-farm. Surprisingly I was stood in the PE line for 35 mins, getting me a bit flustered at PE pax to what I assume was Lagos and possibly Accra (they were calling for Lagos pax) who had more than 3 bags per person, and I guess, by the screeching at the desk, didn't pay for them online. It is not the norm though, as I have been straight up to the desk more often than not.

Anyways, boarding card in hand, passed through the usual formalities with not too much trouble and headed past the glitzy maze of duty free to find barely standing space in departures. I only had to wait a while though as the gate was announced relatively quickly (gate 20 if I remember correctly) and I was there quite quickly. Boarding was satisfactory, the nice smiles were there, got into 20A and settled down. The guy who sat down next to me had travelled in from Portland USA via JFK and had been mulling around for about 5hrs at LHR poor chap. As the doors were sealed, the PE cabin was surprisingly empty - about 11 pax (I have never travelled to DEL in January, and had assumed it would be jam-packed as in Spring or Autumn when I usually travel to India). My friend decided to go and rest in 18A, which was fine by me 20A & C all to myself. Except the arm-rests don't move... o well! I was able to use 20C to have a kip and stretch out a bit more than in 20A and its electronics box. So far so good. The captain came on to announce we would be about 20 mins late (and by the time we were airborne it was 1 hour late which he couldn't make up due to the winds this time of year, so we were late into DEL by an hour + an extra 30 mins thanks to DEL's busy skies!). Wine & OJ were eventually handed out, and a refill offered. I whiled away the delay time by noticing how nice LHR looks by night, mostly empty.

Take off was at around 11pm! ... Not a problem usually. Here comes the gripe, so I suggest skipping down a bit if you don't want to know what a VJML (jain meal) is like on these flights, as I suppose most never need to choose one.

THE BELLYACHE:
No drinks offered first (clever FSM) as we were the hour late, everything came out together. I was a bit hungry, having had time only to have lunch in the day, so by 11pm I was 11hrs without a proper meal. A banana had kept me going through that time. So I was looking forward to the PE meal. My meal and a lactose intolerant meal were handed out before the main service, and I (quite greedily) dug straight in to it, peeling back the foil covering to discover: (SEE Photo attachment)

Let me explain something - I was an economy pax for most of my life, and had to put up with a VJML that bordered on inedible for most of the time, bar one or two exceptions. Since coming to PE, I have only had one bad experience with food and that was to JFK in 2009.

The absolutely disgusting offering made to me that evening was EXACTLY THE SAME as the economy VJML (Vegetarian Jain Meal) that I had grown to expect all those times I flew economy. I never dreamt I would get that in PE!

Just so you know what it is, the main course is rice with various different seeds (I am not a bird, or I wouldn't need to be in a plane), and some brown mush that resembles cow pat. Upon asking the FA's, I was told that it was a vegetable stew. I didn't see any vegetables... it looked revolting. It tasted even more so. I gave up on it, and headed for the dessert. Apple crumble...yay! or so I thought until I tasted it. Freezing cold apples in a semi-flavoured water, with a crumble that was nothing less than cardboard. Absolutely disgusting. I looked to the salad for some help - and then I noticed - there was no butter and no salad dressing on my tray. When I asked an FA about it, he told me that is all that the tray came with. The FA dealing with my side was an Indian FA - surprisingly there were 3 Indian FA's and they all seemed to be in PE - I have no complaints apart from that they seem to be less enthused than their Brit counterparts which I expect is due to their comparatively measly salary. Anyhow, when I asked him for butter, he quite reluctantly went and got it. I was less than pleased with the attitude.

Now I had butter, so I asked for a bread-roll as they were coming around with them. That too came with reluctance!!! They saw my tray and assumed I had one and passed by me. When I called him, he had a sour look on his face. O well.

I accept responsibility in a way - maybe after not eating a proper meal in 12 hours, my hopes were a bit too high. In the line of work I am in, on some occasions the schedule just gets too frantic to worry about food. So I sat there forlorn with my bread-roll, and used the butter and salad to construct an ad-hoc sandwich of sorts. That is all I had that night.

Come on Virgin! I have never had such a bad experience with VJML food in PE in all my time. It was a tad worse than BA which is saying something. So I waited for the ordeal to be over, and I ordered some snacks from the duty free and forced myself into a stomach-growling sleep.

NOW THAT THATS DONE WITH:

The entertainment was good - there were a fair number of films I had wanted to see so I watched 2 movies and left some for the return journey. I woke up to a nice breakfast of baked beans and hashbrowns. We touched down late, but that was expected, so no prob. The FSM didn't make an appearance to PE during the flight, which I found different than the usual practise.

Disembarked, dashed up to immigration and was greeted by an exceptionally god-awfully long queue hampered by the other flights that land after VS's usual spot. Those flights are usually filled with hard-labourers from the Arabian countries returning home, and the vast majority have not been able to fill in their forms properly, prompting delays. I got through to the desk after waiting for 50 mins.

Needless to say that my bags were already doing their parade down the belt, so I was out of there sharpish.

That was the most dysmal experience I have had of PE yet. The only thing that made it seem that it was not economy was the seat. I was extremely disappointed.

THE RETURN JOURNEY - HAPPY DAYS VS301 DEL-LHR 18th Jan 2012, A346 Lady Bird (BUG!), seat 20K

It does get better, or the Food & Drink would have had a poor rating.

OLCI was an altogether new experience this time. At T-24 I was frantically trying to get a good signal on the dongle I use in India. I finally got it, and began to check in. I got to the page where it asks whether I am alone or have companions, and once I clicked check in, there was nothing. It came up with an error. I repeated the process several times and then phoned VS in Delhi. Apparently I had been checked in and seat assigned... I don't know how. Luckily I was assigned the seat I had reserved (20K) and when I asked about the boarding pass, apparently they have temporarily suspended that facility from Delhi until later this year, so I would have to get it at the airport. No prob.

So I left for my 13:50 flight at around 12:10 and was at the airport within 20 mins (the airport is about 8 kms from the place where I stay). I checked in without any hassle, and was told that no-one else had checked in for the seat next to me... happy days! Looked at the boarding pass to discover SEQ 2 .

Boarding was fine, UC and PE called up together and down our separate route to the gangways where we were separated into UC (front door) and PE/E (fwd door at the start of PE). Settled in to my two seats ... ruddy armrest! Pre take off drinks were offered. I suggest that people don't expect to get OJ like here in the UK. The different type of oranges in India mean that although the juice was freshly squeezed (they loaded 8 bottles of the stuff as I came in!) it had a decidedly grapefruit taste to it. Take off was a little before schedule.

The CC was decidedly more chirpy this time, and I overheard their excitement at the prospect of getting some last minute shopping done in the sales in London. This affected their service positively, so the drinks & pretzels came out within 10 mins of the seatbelt sign being turned off. Entertainment was good - I had left two films I wanted to see on the outbound flight so that I could enjoy them on this inbound.

Food was brilliant, my VJML tray came out with a smiling FA, Poppadoms (Paapar) and yoghurt for starters (traditional indian starter), a wonderful paneer dish with fluffy rice & green peas with a nice spinach side for main and a dessert of rasmalai (indian sweet). Bread-rolls were accompanied by an Indian bread of Daal-Paratha (indian flat bread stuffed with seasoned lentils). The salad was generous. All in all a wonderful PE standard meal. The rest were offered a choice of chicken curry, roast chicken & veg, or veg pasta bake.

I decided to be a pushy customer this time to see how the CC reacted and asked for a couple of soft drinks with the meal as the FA came round with the main trolley - this time the FA was happy to leave the service to get the drinks and handed them over to me with a smile Ahh... PE Don't worry - there was only one pax sitting behind me, and he was in la-la land until the FA woke him.

After the films, I took a nap, and woke up in the darkness due to some screaming kids in E... decided to watch some comedy from the Apollo and got some hot-chocolate from the galley. Had another nap and was up for the pre-landing snacks - a nice VJML friendly Samosa Chaat (a snack worth having in India - from either the Haldiram/Bikanervala or Aggarwals eateries - or fresh from an Ashram ). The FA had nicely prepared the tray and put it in the trolley with the others so that I got mines in the order of service, and not before, like with the main meals. I like to dine while others do, so it made a nice change.

Landing was fine - delayed by ATC but ended up at the gate at the time scheduled for landing thanks to the early take off. Disembarked, and made the extremely LONG dash to immigration, through IRIS in a jiffy to find the belt about to start. I thought I'd be in for a wait, but my bags were number 3 & 4 off the belt . I was in arrivals just in time to tell my pick-up not to bother parking and I was out of the terminal within 12 minutes of getting to the gate.

SUMMARY:

Outbound was okay. Inbound was heavenly. Aside from the food fiasco on the outbound, the journey was fine. I look forward to repeating it in Feb. In May I'll be headed to Accra for the first time, so I'll try and post a TR about it. June will be to JFK and then probably BGI for July/Aug. I do love VS, even to the point of putting up with substandard food on occasion... just hope they don't make a habit of it Finally upto 150,000 miles now after the last spend... any ideas what to do with them? I had considered the one return UC, but someone suggested that I use them for miles & money in PE or E upgrade to PE.

On flights thaty leave after 7.00PM there is no seperate drinks service before dinner so it had nothing to do with the delayed departure of the FSM being 'clever'.

Thank you for your trip reports.

It would be preferable if you could post your trips as two separate reports especially when they have such different ratings for food and service. The information is collated and analysed by Pete, the owner of the site and it is useful to know where the gaps are in the service

Thank you for your TRs. As Tonty has said, no seperate drinks service is offered on any Virgin Atlantic flights departing after 7pm - so that was to be expected on your flight.

However, I do hope you are sharing your experience with Virgin Atlantic Customer services and perhaps (even the photos) so they can understand and feedback where needed.

Jon

thanks - comments appreciated, noted and will be put into action next time... I'm still a young v-flyer - just learning the ropes

Ahh don't worry - sometimes we point out the procedure before making the comments, I don't think you did anything too carnal!

Great TRs and detail, much appreciated, that meal looks dire!

Twenty minutes to cover 8km in Delhi, that's pretty neat.

A fine pair of TR's, thank you The description of your outbound food made me feel like I was tasting it Amazing how the outbound and inbound meals could be so far apart in quality

Indifferent service as well on the outbound but awesome on the way back Consistency is the key VS

Thanks for the detailed TR Vsharan. Interesting to hear about your widely differing experiences in service. Great that your latest return was the good one, but as noted so many times on here, VS do need to get their act together and deliver consistent high level.

If they did that, maybe they could get back up to Skytrax 4*.

Martin wrote:If they did that, maybe they could get back up to Skytrax 4*.

There's only one way they'll ever do that and it has nothing to do with:

Food
IFE
Quality of Service
etc.
etc.
etc.

Thank you for the TR and the photos, such a pity about the food on the outward flight but glad the return made up for it. Enjoy your upcoming trips

Thank you for the TRs, shame about the food on the outbound.