VS201 SYD-HKG 11 Jun 06 (Econ)

[mitchja]

This is a Trip Report from the Economy cabin

Ground Staff

Food & Drink

Entertainment

Seat

Cabin Crew

VS201 SYD-HKG
11th June 2006-06-12 A346 (G-VMEG)

Arrived SYD at 12:30, check-in was quite and no queues in any lines. Id already checked in online. Headed for the J check-in. Made a point of asking for priority baggage handling. The agent said there was nothing more she could do as my bag was tagged with an Upper tag and had my Au card attached.

Headed though immigration and security and straight up to the ANZ lounge which was pretty quite. Had a wander down to the gate to see which A346 Id be on and did a bit of shopping. Back at the lounge, before long boarding was called.

Turned right again and headed to my seat (34D). Didnt take long for everyone to board as loads where again light. Just before take-off there was some issues with an eleven year old been assigned an emergency exit row seat. The crew asked them to move. It seemed the check-in agent had wrongly issued these seat to an under seventeen year old.

I thought the crew member handled this situation very badly indeed. She was very patronising towards the eleven year old and his dad. If she had said to me what she said to them, I would have been straight to the FSM. I wont go into what she actually said here. The CSS soon stepped in and calmed the situation apologising for the check-in mistake. She re-issued boarding cards for both flight legs all the way to LHR for them both. Good job row 33 middle seats were empty as they had both paid for exit row seats.

The rest of the in-flight cabin service remained poor through out the flight. I was missed during the handing out of immigration cards/amenity packs and head phones. I gained the attention of the crew going down the other aisle and they were taken a back at my request and looked at me if to say why are you asking me this as its not my job to hand out these things in the other aisle

Absolutely no recognition of my Au status once again as I barely saw the FSM or the CSS the entire flight. I had to ask yet again for my jacket to be placed in a wardrobe before take off. Is it simply too much to ask for to have my jacket taken and hung for me? Clearly yes it is when flying Y.

Shortly after take-off V:Port was started but encountered a system-wide crash after about 40 mins. The entire system had to be re-booted but worked the rest of the flight. Very strange how the system re-boots. I know that it re-boots in sections of the A/C but my seat re-booted a good 10 mins before seats around me. You would have thought rows would re-boot at the same time. Got to see the Linux boot-up sequence. It takes a good 15 mins to completely re-start.

No water or orange juice runs what so ever during the entire flight, in fact crew were only seem during the 2 meals services and the ice-cream run (yes its back)

Watched a few films/programs and the flight did seem to pass pretty quickly this time.

The seat was again un-comfortable and the sooner VS install the new Y seats the better.

Overall not a good VS flight and considering contacted VS customer relations for the second time during my trip.

Before anyone says it - yes I would have spoken to the FSM except they were not visable the entire flight. The overall impression I have got travelling in Y is that they dont really seem concerned what goes on in the non-premium cabins and spend all their time looking after premium pax.

Regards

Thanks for your continuing TR's James[y]

Does seem to me that you are getting a below par service in Y going on what you have written. This is bread and butter stuff to VS and if they can't be bothered especially on this competitive route customers will use other carriers.

Iain

[mitchja]

One other thing that seems to have disappeared as well now are the free exit row seats for Au's....that is if that perk ever did exist in the past?

I've tried on every flight and everytime they said I have to pay. The only free exit row seats are the ones right next to the door which have the slide housing in front of them. All 8 over-wing exit row Y seats on the A346's (row 33) are chargable as they dont have any obstructions at all.

Regards

[HighFlyer]

James, what a shame [:(] I guess its even worse when passengers like yourself know what VS and the Crew are really capable of and blatantly miss the mark in terms of service delivery. I sincerely hope that your return flight to Blighty turns out well.

Thanks,
Sarah

[ChuckC]

James,

Sorry to learn of the tough trip. You are far more accommodating than I, or at least you aren't verbalizing just how ticked off you probably were with the poor service. As Sarah says, you know how good it can be.

I wonder what the FSM's reaction would have been had you chosen to chat her/him up concerning the service.

Chuck-

[RichardMannion]

James - please do everyone a favour and do log this with Customer Relations, simply unacceptable.

Thanks,
Richard

Thanks for the report James, and sorry to hear the cabin crew standards weren't up to the standard expected.

[mitchja]

Just got off the VS201 from HKG, which I have to say was a much much better flight. Full TR to follow, but VS even swapped my seat for an exit row seat as I was boarding the A/C [y] Pretty good considering the flight was full [:)]

One of the CSS's was on the V-Flyer VS20 bus last year. He mostly worked the J bar during the flight on the VS20. Took me a while to work out which flight I reconised him from but he did indeed remember that VS20 flight [:I]

One other thing I was not aware of now is that Revivals is now 100% non-smoking [:I]

Regards

Glad to hear the return flight was better mate

Originally posted by mitchja
One other thing I was not aware of now is that Revivals is now 100% non-smoking [:I]

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! [:0]

Cheers

Michael

[Decker]

Yessssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss [;)]

Thanks for the report glad the HKG-LHR was better.

Yessssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss

[y][^]

Sorry to hear the service weren't up to standards as Richard, said a letter to Customer Relations is a must. [:)]

Originally posted by Decker
Yessssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss [;)]

I can only assume that when the new law comes into force next June that the LHR clubhouse will be going the same way. Shame.

Chris

[Decker]

Personally I don't see why they can't have hermetically sealed smoking rooms for those who need to smoke but ...

At Humberside airport, in the general population lounge/departure area, they have a little windowed room in one corner for smokers which seemes to work.

Originally posted by xenole
At Humberside airport, in the general population lounge/departure area, they have a little windowed room in one corner for smokers which seemes to work.

At the moment, they may well do, as do lots of other places but, as I understand the new laws, everything like this will be banned. Even in private clubs. Nanny state has really triumphed here!

Chris