Anyone know what's going on with the VS73 & 75 ?

[Scrooge]

Pete of course you are right, it is time for our bi-annual VS LGW/MAN service sucks debate.

So without wasting another second...here goes...

In the last 6 months I have gotten to try both LGW and LHR Y service, to LAS and LAX respectively.What did I notice, well the only thing was that the LAS service did not offer V:Port, however the food was better.

Yes the LAS flight was late leaving the gate, but it did arrive on time, the flight to LAX arrived early.

Now on to the bigger debate...

Does VS compare to charters, well yes and no, most of the charters offer a very comparable product to VS's, some even offer more seat pitch, AVOD and other little things.

What VS is suffering from right now is middle age aircraft and lack of funds.

Whenever you think about updating an aircraft with new interiors, IFE seats etc you don't think about millions, you have to think about tens of millions, simply put VS doesn't have that type of money and probably never will.The money spent on the UC upgrade was a huge expence for the airline and it's effects are still being felt, though it has enabled VS to earn more money this has come as the result of cuts in other areas and the push back of other cabins being updated.

This year we are seeing PE get a needed update, Y may or may not happen on some aircraft.

Until the arrival of the 787's I am sorry to say that the pax out of MAN/LGW are stuck with the older aircraft with less amenities, I on occasion am one of them.

Just to back up WILLD's point. The LGW/MAN fleet is heavily used, there is not a lot of slack in the system, so when something goes wrong the havoc it causes can last for weeks, I am sorry to say that in this day and age it is not financially prudent to keep a spare aircraft sitting on the ground, this of course would heklp fix the problems a lot quicker, but it would also kill VS pretty quickly.

Anyways my 2 cents on the subject..ee you all in 6 months.

Originally posted by p17blo

And in response to willd who made a similar comment.

VS have control over which aircraft are deployed where. They have already re-spec an LHR aircraft as LGW and they could do more if they wished to alleviate the problems.

So this does actually prove it all the more that VS don't care about this route.

Paul

I think I agree with Scrooge/Mike.

The LGW/MAN routes are NOT forgotten by VS. If VS really only cared about routes from LHR then the b+s routes would have been droped years ago, after all with such limited premium cabin space the LGW/MAN routes can not really be that much of a money earner for VS (I say this because it is agreed that premium cabins are the only cabins to make money).

The issue with regards to delays, as I mentioned previously, is due to the lack of slack in the system. LGW/MAN is operated by a much smaller fleet and thus it becomes hard to sort things out if they go wrong. At LHR there is a larger number of a/c in the fleet which means that a certain amount of swapping of a/c can be done if one goes tech.

Back in the old days- a frequent poster on these boards was someone from the flight ops department at VS. He provided a number of exceptionally useful posts on just how hard the LGW fleet was worked. I believe he said that the LGW fleet is in the air for 18 hours a day where as the LHR fleet is airborn for only something like 13-14hours.

The LGW fleet really isnt that old either- lets remember the vast majority of the fleet is from the ex AZ order so therefore were delivered ~2000. Just to compare- DL's 763's operating transatlantic flights are all roughly 15 years old, the 777s that BA use ex LGW were amongst the first ordered in the mid 90s and so on.


The issue with regard to inflight experience on VS from LGW is I am affraid down to "the luck of the draw". It is the crew that makes a flight great not what is offered as standard. As VS crew do both LHR/LGW departures you are just as likely to get a poor on board expereince from LHR as you are from LGW. My last three VS trips have all been ex-LGW and the crew on all six flights have been EXCELLENT.

As Scrooge said the only real difference between LHR/LGW is that one a/c has V:Port and the other doesnt. Yes it would be nice to have V:Port on LGW services BUT if it doesn't make business sense then there is no point in installing it......if you think Nova is bad- go try Lufthansa!!

I cannot believe for a second that by operating LHR-BGI instead of LGW-BGI the standard of service will increase- I am sorry it doesnt hold with me. If anything the hype over b+s routes is drawn out by people like us.

Originally posted by willd
Yes it would be nice to have V:Port on LGW services BUT if it doesn't make business sense then there is no point in installing it......if you think Nova is bad- go try Lufthansa!!

Hahaha... a very good point. Little or no meal choice, and the "take it or leave it" choice of movie projected onto what looks like a bath mat at the front of the cabin.

I can't believe in this day and age an airline is recieving brand spanking new A340-600s with no AVOD in the Y cabin.

Talking of Germanic airlines, a friend recently flew Condor. He was somewhat surprised to have been offered "top shelf" reading material by the flight attendant. His comment was that despite it not being a compelling proposition, it was surprising and amusing!

Anyway, there's already rumours out there that VS might be considering replacing Nova because it has a high cost of maintenance (it's a relatively uncommon system).

Mike

GOOD NEWS! VS75 is ONLY going to be 6 hours late today!
(where is that tounge in cheek smiley)

The VS76 came in on time, so thats not the reason

Willd, I just cannot agree.
The only reason Virgin are flying up to four UK-MCO flights a day is not the UCS cabin, but the fact that the economy seats are full, so the aircraft has paid its way and the UCS are a bonus payment on top.

Loads per flight route would be interesting to see, I bet the UK-MCO have higher loads than many of the LHR buisness routes and are more financially viable, but those slots are worth a lot at LHR eh?

As for the "Lufthansa are worse" comments, you could also say that now FCA and MYT and THOM are all better and they fly from the UK!

Originally posted by Pete
Have you seen those new Club World seats? Looks like they were made in a time-warp. I though the sidewalls were Bakelite when I first clocked them...

No I haven't had the chance yet, seems BA LGW refit are a little behind the LHR - Wonder where they got that idea from[}:)] Maybe in September??

Paul

Originally posted by willd

Originally posted by p17blo

And in response to willd who made a similar comment.

VS have control over which aircraft are deployed where. They have already re-spec an LHR aircraft as LGW and they could do more if they wished to alleviate the problems.

So this does actually prove it all the more that VS don't care about this route.

Paul

I think I agree with Scrooge/Mike.

The LGW/MAN routes are NOT forgotten by VS. If VS really only cared about routes from LHR then the b+s routes would have been droped years ago, after all with such limited premium cabin space the LGW/MAN routes can not really be that much of a money earner for VS (I say this because it is agreed that premium cabins are the only cabins to make money).

The issue with regards to delays, as I mentioned previously, is due to the lack of slack in the system. LGW/MAN is operated by a much smaller fleet and thus it becomes hard to sort things out if they go wrong. At LHR there is a larger number of a/c in the fleet which means that a certain amount of swapping of a/c can be done if one goes tech.

Back in the old days- a frequent poster on these boards was someone from the flight ops department at VS. He provided a number of exceptionally useful posts on just how hard the LGW fleet was worked. I believe he said that the LGW fleet is in the air for 18 hours a day where as the LHR fleet is airborn for only something like 13-14hours.

The LGW fleet really isnt that old either- lets remember the vast majority of the fleet is from the ex AZ order so therefore were delivered ~2000. Just to compare- DL's 763's operating transatlantic flights are all roughly 15 years old, the 777s that BA use ex LGW were amongst the first ordered in the mid 90s and so on.


The issue with regard to inflight experience on VS from LGW is I am affraid down to "the luck of the draw". It is the crew that makes a flight great not what is offered as standard. As VS crew do both LHR/LGW departures you are just as likely to get a poor on board expereince from LHR as you are from LGW. My last three VS trips have all been ex-LGW and the crew on all six flights have been EXCELLENT.

As Scrooge said the only real difference between LHR/LGW is that one a/c has V:Port and the other doesnt. Yes it would be nice to have V:Port on LGW services BUT if it doesn't make business sense then there is no point in installing it......if you think Nova is bad- go try Lufthansa!!

I cannot believe for a second that by operating LHR-BGI instead of LGW-BGI the standard of service will increase- I am sorry it doesnt hold with me. If anything the hype over b+s routes is drawn out by people like us.

OOps forgot to add my bit to the quote, lol.

Have to really really disagree about the quality of service regarding MAN, ten years two trips each year, one from LGW good service almost every time. One each year from MAN good service once or twice otherwise sorry this wasn't loaded, sorry this wasn't working blah blah blah. suites dirty, toilets average.

[Scrooge]

Originally posted by AlanA

Willd, I just cannot agree.
The only reason Virgin are flying up to four UK-MCO flights a day is not the UCS cabin, but the fact that the economy seats are full, so the aircraft has paid its way and the UCS are a bonus payment on top.

Sorry Alan, it's not the Y load that makes money on these or any LGW/MAN flight, it is the W cabin that makes all the money.Those 46 seats sell for a nice premium.

What I don't get, and this may be route specific is that it costs more to fly in UC LGW -LAS then it does to fly LHR - LAX and yet you get a lower standard of product...we need more flights on this route I know.

Originally posted by Scrooge
What I don't get, and this may be route specific is that it costs more to fly in UC LGW -LAS then it does to fly LHR - LAX and yet you get a lower standard of product...we need more flights on this route I know.

That's an effect of yield management on the larger vs. smaller J cabin.

Many of us would argue that the J cabin was over-shrunk during the UCS refit of the LGW/MAN fleet.

Mike

Originally posted by mike-smashing

Originally posted by Scrooge


Many of us would argue that the J cabin was over-shrunk during the UCS refit of the LGW/MAN fleet.

Mike

What size J cabin was in the LGW/MAN 747 fleet prior to UCS?

Originally posted by NS

Originally posted by mike-smashing

Originally posted by Scrooge


Many of us would argue that the J cabin was over-shrunk during the UCS refit of the LGW/MAN fleet.

Mike

What size J cabin was in the LGW/MAN 747 fleet prior to UCS?

it had tow sections, Zone A and Zone B. Zone B now is where the downstairs PE and rows 21-23 of economy are???
is that correct?

And what seat type were they - did that fleet get the J2000 or an earlier predecessor?

Thanks

Originally posted by NS
And what seat type were they - did that fleet get the J2000 or an earlier predecessor?

Thanks

When we flew with that format they were the Recardo seats
I think there is a pricture on the photo section
Edit:
Yes here you go
link

EDIT by Scrooge: cleaned up link

Thanks AlanA - I'm fascinating by the develelopment of airliner cabins.

Did the A340-300's arrive with the J2000's anyone?

Just read on another forum that to replace the damaged "Barbarella" (two rumours of how she was damaged by the way, one is that she was hit by lightning, the other that she was damaged at MCO and flew home with a depressurised hold [:0].....) that the VS75 today was operated by "Cosmic Girl". Some very happy PE passengers I would imagine, as there are not so many PE seats but loads more UC seats....Anyone confirm this?

Originally posted by AlanA
Just read on another forum that to replace the damaged "Barbarella" (two rumours of how she was damaged by the way, one is that she was hit by lightning, the other that she was damaged at MCO and flew home with a depressurised hold [:0].....) that the VS75 today was operated by "Cosmic Girl". Some very happy PE passengers I would imagine, as there are not so many PE seats but loads more UC seats....Anyone confirm this?

I would take it with a pinch of salt if you read about it on pprune- its known as being worse than the flamers on a.net .

It would have been a very bad bit of lightning- after all a/c are built to be able to withstand a hit.

Originally posted by AlanA

The only reason Virgin are flying up to four UK-MCO flights a day is not the UCS cabin, but the fact that the economy seats are full, so the aircraft has paid its way and the UCS are a bonus payment on top.

Sorry Alan, have to disagree with you and agree with Mikes later comments (don't know how to show two lots of quotes [:I])

In the last 13 months I have flown 7 Upper class sectors between LGW to MCO and 2 Upper class sectors between MAN to MCO.

Within these 9 upper class flights there have been 126 available seats for sale - there have been no more than 6 free. That is not the case with the economy seats when on 3 occasions there has been as little as 50 seats occupied and only on 2 occasions has there been anything like 85% sold.

It is obvious from my experiences that Virgin dropped the ball when they reduced the Upper class allocation to only 14 on the LGW flights. The first thing they want to do is all those silly rows of economy seats out of rows 21, 22, and 23, push the premium seats back and get some more suites in. That would bring the margins up significantly. This is again proven by trying to book a reward seat in Upper on these flights (many of us have tried to play that game [:w])

regards

David

VS 75 was definately operated by 'cosmic girl' - but no explanation as to why, I know someone who was on the flight.

I can confirm that G-VWOW operated the VS075 on both Tuesday and Wednesday...

ACARS mode: 1 Aircraft reg: G-VWOW [Boeing B744]
Message label: ** Block id: @ Msg no: 1076
Flight id: VS0075 [MAN-MCO] [Virgin Atlantic Airways]
----------------------------------------------------------[ 30/05/2007 16:50 ]-

ACARS mode: 1 Aircraft reg: G-VWOW [Boeing B744]
Message label: ** Block id: @ Msg no: 1399
Flight id: VS0075 [MAN-MCO] [Virgin Atlantic Airways]
----------------------------------------------------------[ 29/05/2007 18:58 ]-

[Decker]

Interestingly ExpertFlyer Reports 73 as

75% on time, out of 20 flights 5 were late

and 75 as

being 82% on time, out of 57 flights 10 were late

Now looking at my favourite LHR EWR flight the VS1

61% on time, out of 62 flights 24 were late.

Perhaps they favour SFO then?

VS19 - 53% on time.... etc etc

Sorry only just noticed this expertflyer feature!

And yet we have VS27 (LGW-MCO) with a 52% on time average

And then we have the VS15 (LGW-MCO also) with a 35% on time average

hmmmmm

Paul

[Nottingham Nick]

Originally posted by GrinningJackanapes
Because Virgin just don't care about these routes at all.

Whatever would make you think such a thing? [?];)

[Decker]

My vote would be for satirical hyperbole designed to puncture paranoid delusions but hey it's tough to tell at 8,000 miles

Originally posted by Decker
My vote would be for satirical hyperbole designed to puncture paranoid delusions but hey it's tough to tell at 8,000 miles

[:p][:p]