Below is a copy of the letter that my husband has posted off to customer services.
We paid about £600 each for our economy seats and although in the grand scheme of things (certainly from the point of view of upper class passengers I suppose) this was not an enormous amount, it was as much as we could possibly afford and is a lot to us. DIY check in was pointless due to the cues to check in our bags. The flights were not very pleasant and frankly I'm a bit put off by the demise of standards after 10 years of flying Virgin from Manchester/Orlando, but wonder if any other airline is any better[:(]
Dear Sirs,
My wife and I are Flying Club members, Frequent Virgin Club members, hold Virgin credit cards, have a Virgin car loan and even have Virgin e-mail addresses, and hold a great respect for Sir Richard Branson and all his endeavours, so as you can see we are committed ‘Virgin fans’.
Together with our 11 year old daughter, we have been flying the Manchester to Orlando route with Virgin Atlantic for a number of years, and have always been delighted with the excellent Virgin levels of service cleanliness, attitude and helpfulness from all staff from the booking office right through to the airline crew, and as a result have recommended Virgin Atlantic to all our friends and family.
This year we travelled VS075 Manchester to Orlando on the 24th May, 2006, returning VS076 Orlando to Manchester on the 8th June, 2006. Both flights had some unnecessary difficulties which spoiled our whole Virgin experience for which we were extremely disappointed.
On our outbound journey, we found a problem with the in flight entertainment system headphones (as a considerable number of other passengers in our cabin did) which meant that they did not fit into the sockets properly, this resulted in our headphones continually falling out crackling and disconnecting. The cabin staff were of course more than courteous and apologetic and tried their best to help by biting off lengths of black and yellow striped hazard tape with their teeth and binding it around the arm rests in an attempt to secure the headphones for us and all the other passengers, but their attempts were futile as this did not really work very well and had to be unwrapped and re-adjusted numerous times during the flight. Also our daughter had a problem with her screen which kept turning itself off and would only work when we rattled the screen about in its housing in the back of the seat at which point it would re-connect and worked for a while again so there was certainly a connection problem with that.
We have always received a plentiful supply of drinks in the form at least of water and juice (which your ‘healthy flight information’ suggests is very important on long haul flights) and an ice lollipop mid flight, which my daughter always looks forward to receiving. Unfortunately we received one drink which for us consisted of half a plastic cup of water shortly after take off and one drink in the interim following our meal. No further refreshments were available on either flight, and when on the outbound journey the cabin crew found passengers at some points queuing four deep at the galley in an attempt to serve themselves, a staff member was heard to mutter ‘Oh for God’s sake’ under her breath, and was obviously less than happy that passengers were leaving their seats to get drinks. There was no ice lollipop, so my daughter was disappointed.
We noticed that the cabin crew disappeared upstairs through a door at the back of the aircraft for in excess of two hours on both flights, during which no staff could be summoned or seemed to be available in our cabin to assist with any problems or indeed maintain security on the aircraft which concerned us greatly. When the crew did return we saw them busy re-arranging clothing, tidying hair and the male members fastening shirts, tucking their shirts in and putting on ties as they walked down the aircraft to the galley. We have never witnessed this before and could not understand why on a daytime flight, the crew should need to rest, in addition it gave a dreadful impression.
On our return flight the crew, some looking half asleep re-emerged quite late in the flight which resulted in breakfast being served and then tidied away at break neck speed, only just in time for landing.
On boarding VS076 we all three reached into our seat back pockets to read the entertainment magazines to find all the magazines and the safety procedure cards were sticky and covered in what looked like cake, this we also found stuck to the floor in front of our seats in lumps which ended up on our hands and stuck to the soles of our shoes. The pockets were full of crumbs and other peoples rubbish, the aircraft had obviously not been cleaned very well if at all.
With the additional unbelievably long queue the likes of which we have never seen before at check for VS076, which was scheduled to close at 15:15 but went on for some considerable time after that, everyone felt like cattle being herded, overall, both our flights were very disappointing indeed and definitely not of the standard that we have always received and come to expect from Virgin Atlantic.
Please can you give me your assurance that these situations will not re-occur as we are seriously considering changing our travel arrangements in the future to an alternative airline if standards are going to drop in this way and remain so. This would be a terrible shame and we know that this is not normal for Virgin Atlantic and you can offer a far superior service than we experienced this year.
As I am sure you will appreciate we only take two weeks holiday each year and those are with Virgin Atlantic. Our holiday takes us all year to save up for and is very important to us. The flights are as much a part of our holiday as the destination itself and we look forward very much to those flights.
We look forward to hearing from you with your comments concerning our specific and individual flight problems and hope for a favourable re-action to our difficulties from Virgin Atlantic, which we hope will remain our favourite airline.
We paid about £600 each for our economy seats and although in the grand scheme of things (certainly from the point of view of upper class passengers I suppose) this was not an enormous amount, it was as much as we could possibly afford and is a lot to us. DIY check in was pointless due to the cues to check in our bags. The flights were not very pleasant and frankly I'm a bit put off by the demise of standards after 10 years of flying Virgin from Manchester/Orlando, but wonder if any other airline is any better[:(]
Dear Sirs,
My wife and I are Flying Club members, Frequent Virgin Club members, hold Virgin credit cards, have a Virgin car loan and even have Virgin e-mail addresses, and hold a great respect for Sir Richard Branson and all his endeavours, so as you can see we are committed ‘Virgin fans’.
Together with our 11 year old daughter, we have been flying the Manchester to Orlando route with Virgin Atlantic for a number of years, and have always been delighted with the excellent Virgin levels of service cleanliness, attitude and helpfulness from all staff from the booking office right through to the airline crew, and as a result have recommended Virgin Atlantic to all our friends and family.
This year we travelled VS075 Manchester to Orlando on the 24th May, 2006, returning VS076 Orlando to Manchester on the 8th June, 2006. Both flights had some unnecessary difficulties which spoiled our whole Virgin experience for which we were extremely disappointed.
On our outbound journey, we found a problem with the in flight entertainment system headphones (as a considerable number of other passengers in our cabin did) which meant that they did not fit into the sockets properly, this resulted in our headphones continually falling out crackling and disconnecting. The cabin staff were of course more than courteous and apologetic and tried their best to help by biting off lengths of black and yellow striped hazard tape with their teeth and binding it around the arm rests in an attempt to secure the headphones for us and all the other passengers, but their attempts were futile as this did not really work very well and had to be unwrapped and re-adjusted numerous times during the flight. Also our daughter had a problem with her screen which kept turning itself off and would only work when we rattled the screen about in its housing in the back of the seat at which point it would re-connect and worked for a while again so there was certainly a connection problem with that.
We have always received a plentiful supply of drinks in the form at least of water and juice (which your ‘healthy flight information’ suggests is very important on long haul flights) and an ice lollipop mid flight, which my daughter always looks forward to receiving. Unfortunately we received one drink which for us consisted of half a plastic cup of water shortly after take off and one drink in the interim following our meal. No further refreshments were available on either flight, and when on the outbound journey the cabin crew found passengers at some points queuing four deep at the galley in an attempt to serve themselves, a staff member was heard to mutter ‘Oh for God’s sake’ under her breath, and was obviously less than happy that passengers were leaving their seats to get drinks. There was no ice lollipop, so my daughter was disappointed.
We noticed that the cabin crew disappeared upstairs through a door at the back of the aircraft for in excess of two hours on both flights, during which no staff could be summoned or seemed to be available in our cabin to assist with any problems or indeed maintain security on the aircraft which concerned us greatly. When the crew did return we saw them busy re-arranging clothing, tidying hair and the male members fastening shirts, tucking their shirts in and putting on ties as they walked down the aircraft to the galley. We have never witnessed this before and could not understand why on a daytime flight, the crew should need to rest, in addition it gave a dreadful impression.
On our return flight the crew, some looking half asleep re-emerged quite late in the flight which resulted in breakfast being served and then tidied away at break neck speed, only just in time for landing.
On boarding VS076 we all three reached into our seat back pockets to read the entertainment magazines to find all the magazines and the safety procedure cards were sticky and covered in what looked like cake, this we also found stuck to the floor in front of our seats in lumps which ended up on our hands and stuck to the soles of our shoes. The pockets were full of crumbs and other peoples rubbish, the aircraft had obviously not been cleaned very well if at all.
With the additional unbelievably long queue the likes of which we have never seen before at check for VS076, which was scheduled to close at 15:15 but went on for some considerable time after that, everyone felt like cattle being herded, overall, both our flights were very disappointing indeed and definitely not of the standard that we have always received and come to expect from Virgin Atlantic.
Please can you give me your assurance that these situations will not re-occur as we are seriously considering changing our travel arrangements in the future to an alternative airline if standards are going to drop in this way and remain so. This would be a terrible shame and we know that this is not normal for Virgin Atlantic and you can offer a far superior service than we experienced this year.
As I am sure you will appreciate we only take two weeks holiday each year and those are with Virgin Atlantic. Our holiday takes us all year to save up for and is very important to us. The flights are as much a part of our holiday as the destination itself and we look forward very much to those flights.
We look forward to hearing from you with your comments concerning our specific and individual flight problems and hope for a favourable re-action to our difficulties from Virgin Atlantic, which we hope will remain our favourite airline.
Always looking for a bargain !
MCO here we come woo hoo!!!
MCO here we come woo hoo!!!
