VS Some need of fine tuning to some Cabin Crew

Me and my mum fly VS a lot but we have been slightly put off by three flights we have been on were the cabin crew were rude, yelling, and unattendtive[V]

Whats happened virgin used to have a lot of friendly staff, and the LA check in desk has some mean staff![8)]

Hi Im impressed no one else had the name Virgin Altantic as their screen name already LOL.

I think sometimes you can be lucky and have some great staff and some great results such as them giving you free upgrades, free bottle of champaqne and even sitting in the cockpit on landing (last one quite extreme!!)

I've flown easy jet, ba, saa, bmi, etc and sometimes I get great service and sometimes not.

The job is quite demanding the crew are on show for upto 12 hours (more in delays) and have a program of serving food, duty free, tea coffee then food again plus all the other requests.

Ive had one bad flight with Virgin it was on an Airbus hence im not too keen on them, the entertainment system had completely packed up so no film etc for 10 hours, the plane was a bone shaker and creaked and the crew were obviously moaned at about all this so were in the foulest mood!!! (not that i asked for anything just watching how they reacted). When I got back I wrote to Virgin (a nice letter) just explaining that it was unfortunate and I still was going to fly Virgin and requested that we could have some complimentary passes to the lounge, it worked I've flown a couple of times since and its been okay. (although I have another fight in a bone shaker (airbus) so we'll see how that goes!)

Like any job you have good and bad days hope you have a better flight the next time you go.

B

there are some right dragons at LA the woman i spoke to was rude unhelpfull and looked like a right madam, i said goodbye and she ignored me also the other staff were rude!!

most crew are really nice but been on a few flights one where the IFS looked like a right dragon she was[}:)]

on my last visit to LA had a rude woman treat me like a pice of s@*t at imagration and the had the company of her 10 day's later at checkin in LAS.

but the crew on all the VS flight's ive been on have been brill.

[RichardMannion]

Always found the LA staff to be awesome, in fact my favourite member of VS staff works at LAX.

I've had a few problems with flights in my 6 years flying with VS, in particular with IAD - but that is in the past now.

If it was that bad, I would write a letter in to customer realtions and they will help you out.

Thanks,
Richard

I always say just rise above any rudeness you get from anyone...be super-nice:D to them, then they just feel like complete idiots for being rude.

I've never had rude F/A on VS but a few of the check in staff at SFO are very rude and don't seem to have the time for you, especially a tall male with bleach blond hair(didn't catch his name).

Although after watching a few episodes of 'Airport' i can imagine that they can get pretty stressed!

db1, I have to agree. I think if you meet someone with a face like thunder if you are polite and give them a big smile they are usually fine with you. It can't be easy dealing with a load of (sometimes) stressed out pax.

Life's too bloomin short to get upset by it, just rise above it and carry on smiling

Shaz

quote:Originally posted by db1
I've never had rude F/A on VS but a few of the check in staff at SFO are very rude and don't seem to have the time for you, especially a tall male with bleach blond hair(didn't catch his name).

I've never had a problem with them at all, and I think I know which one you're on about (don't know his name either).

Must say though that Allan (one of them that does the passport checking in the queue at SFO) was telling me that a customer was upgraded the other week because he'd actually treated the check-in agents like people. Seems that a lot of folks go through there with a real attitude problem and give the check-in agents a ton of grief - never understood the point of that meself. [V]

Cheers

Michael

I'd always be nice to check-in staff no matter what, even if i get a snotty one. Or in the case of SFO when it was still J2000 getting a tutt when i asked if row 6 was available - and being gold card its not like i'd just been op upgraded from Y and asking for row 6. (oh but i did do that on my very first flight with VS to JFK...well it was from PE not Y hehehe)

quote:Originally posted by db1
I'd always be nice to check-in staff no matter what, even if i get a snotty one.

Oh don't get me wrong, I wasn't trying to imply you weren't - just it's probably a reason behind some of them being offhand now & again

Cheers

Michael

We cant make excuses for upto 12 hour flights.

At the interview and during your six weeks of training all new crew are told about long hours.

Take HKG flight you start duty at 1pm GMT and dont land in the UK until 5am the following day!!!!

It does not matter the time of the day crew have to be nice!

However it can be annoying when on a 6 hour flight from NY a passenger starts shouting at you cos you have run out of chicken!!! like its the crews fault.

Im sure some passengers think we just make it up cos we like an argument.

In just 5hours you will be in London and can all the chicken you like.

Some routes the passengers can make the flight hell for the crew which can put some crew members in a bad mood!!

If you fly a fair bit on any airline you will encounter bad staff just as you will in any walk of life.I have had far more positive experiences on board VS flights than negative and the last few this year have been fabulous.My 3 all time worst flights were with SQ in 1st, BA in J & VS UC(old 747-200 UC upstairs was truely abysmal,but i'm over it now:D)All these flights were bad because of crew.

I think I've commented before that I think check-in staff are the weak link in the chain in terms of customer service. Most of them are great, but I've encountered more poor quality service at check-in than elsewhere.

As others have commented, being in a customer-facing role for a long period of time is not east, and some passengfers don't make it any easier. I've come across very few poor in-flight staff, and many more who have the patience of Job when dealing with some pretty awful passengers.

Have flown with Virgin to Orlando 3 times from LGW will be our 4th but our 1st from Man. Have always been treated with respect and the cabin crew do a fantastic job. On our first trip even though my little girl was over the 12mths mark they still gave me a sky cot. While they were serving drinks I sat in one of their seats to see if I could get her off to sleep, which she did.My son had a night terror and wanted to get off half way across the Atlantic! would love to drop him there now he has reached 13 .
My father in law is in a wheelchair and I was very impressed on how they deal with invalids. Mother in law had a women who was a real pain and the plane was full , but they gave her a bottle of champers for the trouble the px caused.Need I say more.

Virgin Atlantic,

Please can you elaborate? In what way were the crew rude and am intrigued about the yelling!

Unfortunately there are always a few employees that are not up to standard and I believe this is true of every company.

Whilst rudeness and unattentiveness is inexcusable sometimes on aircraft passengers will be unaware as to what is happening in the other areas of the aircraft. For example I once had a 60 year old lady really lay into me because she had to wait 20 minutes for a G & T (she was lucky I remembered at all with my brain cells). What she didn't know was that I had a passenger who had drunk 2 bottles (litres) of smirnoff blue vodka on the sly and was verbally abusing the passengers around him and touching up the cabin crew at the rear of the aircraft along with a passenger who was severley disabled and needed the crew''s assistance throughout the flight. After a certain amount of time even my patience was tested and the smile had certainly slipped somewhat!

The only way we can encourage the crew to do a better job is by feedback from you guys. Not only negative feedback but positive feedback is the greatest motivator there is. Virgin Atlantic, please write to Virgin to air your concerns. It may be there was a reason for the crew being unattentive (although the yelling is a different story) and the crew members onboard your flights will be contacted to ask what went wrong.

I apologise that you haven't enjoyed your recent experiences with Virgin and I hope it doesn't dissaude you from flying with us again.

Best Regards

ps Just thank god that the check in staff you have experienced are only in contact with you for the shortest amount of time possible Richard is correct, one of Virgin's top empolyees works there, however when she is away it is a slightly different story am afraid [:(]

Just to echo what southernbelle has already said, unfortunately there are a few bad apples in every orchard.

Now that Performance Monitoring is back, it won't take long to identify who is not meeting the required standards.

I must say that I've never witnessed a crew member yelling at a customer. Could you possibly elaborate on what happened?

quote:Originally posted by jaguarpig
If you fly a fair bit on any airline you will encounter bad staff just as you will in any walk of life.I have had far more positive experiences on board VS flights than negative and the last few this year have been fabulous.My 3 all time worst flights were with SQ in 1st, BA in J & VS UC(old 747-200 UC upstairs was truely abysmal,but i'm over it now:D)All these flights were bad because of crew.

Will we were gonna fly virgin but we flew swiss instead
swiss is a nice airline;(Plus my mum couldn't stand it any longer been treated like no bodys business in Terminal 2 LAX VS Desk.

I too have had my occasional bad run-ins with some VS staff, although it is usually with VS check-in staff, not the on-board crew. However most of the time, I am treated very well.

I find getting to know them (even picking up a name or two) is a great way to set a good relationship. Since I fly frequently enough, and almost always to NYC and BOS, I find that I am starting to run into the same people so it's nice when they recognise you. I also find that showing a bit of friendliness can result in even more personalised service (which for me means frequent alcohol refills). I am definitely recognised by a couple of people in the EWR clubhouse, since that staff seems to be fairly stable. I don't find that I have gotten to know the LHR staff all that well because it's a much larger clubhouse (although some of the treatment people seem to recognise me from time to time)

I also find that not acting as if you are entitled to special treatment can often result in getting that special treatment anyway.

I find that if your nice to people they are generally nice to you!

I always get the names of the FA/IFS so that I can thank them in person etc

I think doing that in combination of when you get a sec would you mind doing x please instead of get me a drink now!

I've always got great service on most of my flights esp VS I'd like to think part of that is because I try to be nice and not demanding

quote:Originally posted by Jonathan
I find that if your nice to people they are generally nice to you!

I always get the names of the FA/IFS so that I can thank them in person etc

I think doing that in combination of when you get a sec would you mind doing x please instead of get me a drink now!

I've always got great service on most of my flights esp VS I'd like to think part of that is because I try to be nice and not demanding

I also find that if my expectations tend to rise too high for VS staff, all I need to do is take a US internal flight. Compared to most domestic US airlines, VS staff are amazing!

quote:Originally posted by pegitt
on my last visit to LA had a rude woman treat me like a pice of s@*t at imagration and the had the company of her 10 day's later at checkin in LAS.

but the crew on all the VS flight's ive been on have been brill.

An immigration officer being rude? Never [:p]

I have never had any problems with VS staff, but I can fully understand how their patience runs thin at times. I was sat near some "drinkers" on my way to Boston last year and although they were relativly quiet it still makes you uncomfortable when they are asking for drinks all the time.

With regard to shabby airplanes, on my flight to Las Vegas a few years back my window had come away from the side of the cabin. The aircraft is sitting in the desert nowdays..... I hope it's seen its last days.

I just got back from being on holiday and the flight out(VS 8 7/10) the staff was the best I have ever encountered. Friendly, knowledgeable, speedy, in one word, perfect.

But on VS 7 on 7/17 the staff was horrible, worse than I've experianced with BA and the rest of the gang...

Luck of the draw I guess

[mitchja]

quote:Originally posted by jonathan020

quote:Originally posted by pegitt
on my last visit to LA had a rude woman treat me like a pice of s@*t at imagration and the had the company of her 10 day's later at checkin in LAS.

but the crew on all the VS flight's ive been on have been brill.

An immigration officer being rude? Never [:p]

I was totally amazed when I arrived at SFO 2 years ago and reached immigration as I had never met a nicer immigration officer in my life travelling to the US. As he flicked through my passport he spotted a NYC stamp from a few months earlier and joked 'are you allowed 2 holidays in 1 year?' When I said that the NYC trip was just a long weekend so not technically a holiday, he laughed stamped my passport and wished me a pleasent stay in San Francisco.

Regards