Virgin leaving late BA on time

I have been watching the VS027 for the last 2 weeks as I will be going on that flight soon, but have noticed it has never left on time, 1 hour or more late, however the BA flight that leaves 10 minutes before it always leaves on time give or take 10/15 mins, is there a reason for this? Thanks

[Darren Wheeler]

Firstly, welcome to V-Flyer.

A quick look at Expertflyer shows that the average delays for the last 2 months are:

VS27 - 61 minutes
BA2037 - 11 minutes
BA2039 - 60 minutes

Quite often the delay is a knock on from the MCO end. As the VS fleet is very tight and little or no slack for delays, any issues in Orlando such as weather or the plane going techy will affect the next outbound flight. Where as BA have a larger fleet, it's easier for them to substitute a replacement aircraft if they know there is a delay.

[mitchja]

Also VS are using 744's where as BA (I think) use 777's so VS have more pax/cargo to load onto every flight.

Regards

[Darren Wheeler]

And of course BA could be a lot better at hearding the masses encouraging pax to board early. [}:)]

If an hours something to get stressed about my advice is stay at home with a good book.

Murphy's law will always act as well. Last year I flew to BKK with a tight connection on from there. I religiously checked the website every day for the week before and the flight left on schedule almost to the minute every day. Sure enough, on my day, congestion at LHR prevented us leaving the stand for over an hour.

EGG, are you working for VS these days?[:D]

Welcome Toonandme to VFlyer. I prefer to be at my destination on time and not an hour late too, whatever anybody else says about it being 'only' an hour!

I tend to think if it is a regular occurance then they should just change the actual departure time to what would be more sensible.

[Neil]

Late departure doesn't always mean late arrival. When we left MAN an hour late in April we still arrived 15mins early and have done this on numerous occasions with many different airlines. I know once we were late departing and the captain said it was because the flight time would be shorter than expected and no point leaving early as we wouldn't have been able to land, so better to be held on the ground.

Neil

I've just looked back at mid-end June and certainly VS27 doesn't often get away less than half an hour late. The arrival times are also usually late too - although less than the delayed departure (usually).

Originally posted by maz
EGG, are you working for VS these days?[:D]

Welcome Toonandme to VFlyer. I prefer to be at my destination on time and not an hour late too, whatever anybody else says about it being 'only' an hour!

I tend to think if it is a regular occurance then they should just change the actual departure time to what would be more sensible.

Should I recommend a good book club to you[:o)]

Thank you for all your replies especially Maz, I am just so excited, I just do not want to be waiting around for hours, I just want to be there, thanks again

PS Thanks but I have plenty of books to read!!!!!!!!!

Originally posted by mitchja
Also VS are using 744's where as BA (I think) use 777's so VS have more pax/cargo to load onto every flight.

Regards

Ermmmm, so schedule accordingly VS?

EGG, some of us can't help desiring punctuality (my star person says its a feature stemming from my Virgoan nature) ... on time to things we commit to, with a similar expectation from others. I agree, reading a good book, drinking some champagne, surfing VFlyer when waiting are all good things, but there's this little inner niggle that gets you if you suffer from my traits [;)].

Never a good idea to religiously check the departure times as it just tempts fate. Worked out my last flight was on average just 15 mins delayed. Of course, on the day of the actual flight, it gets cancelled! D'oh!! [:I]

maz Posted - 09/07/2008 : 13:24:32

tend to think if it is a regular occurance then they should just change the actual departure time to what would be more sensible.

Yea it would suit VS to just say ' we should be departing sometime between 11 and 1'

I've been monitoring the VS43 for some time ... again, departure over two hours late today

I won't be well pleased if, come my flight I am hanging around for hours with no explanation

I save hard for my bi-annual vacations (no corporate trips here) and the less (unexplained) stress at the beginning of it the better the trip will be as a whole

For the record, my last transatlantic trip was with BA where I paid £1600 for a Club World return seat and got upgraded to First on the way out ... no delays, great food & service

Having not flown with VS since 2006 (when, in all honesty my experience was flawless), it will be an interesting return to VS for me ... one hopes it will be as good as two years ago [;)]

I also monitored VS601 recently as I flew it on 20 June. Always on time. On the way to the airport I received a text from Virgin saying it had been delayed from 20:30 to 09:00 the next day!! Didn't get too stressted by it all - not much I could have done about it. Just chose to relax in the hotel they provided for us.

By the way, I'm writing to Virgin to say that they lost me a day of my holiday and made me incur 900 Rand of B&B expenses the other end that I wouldn't have paid had the flight been on time. Do you reckon they might reimburse that and give us some miles as compensation?

[Neil]

I imagine you will just get miles as a compensation offer. It is the usual way for VS customer service to deal with severe delays/compensation. When our flight got cancelled last year we got miles and no money offered to compensate anything extra we had spent.

Cheers Neil. Any idea what I might get for a 12 hour delay? I'm FC gold and the missus is FC silver if that makes any difference!

Thankfully I've not got any experience of a 12 hour delay but I would hope to see a good 50k miles each to be honest. However they'll probably only offer about 10k so you might have to go in hard and demand more.

[Neil]

Originally posted by flyerdavid
Cheers Neil. Any idea what I might get for a 12 hour delay? I'm FC gold and the missus is FC silver if that makes any difference!

Not sure your FC status really makes much difference. We were all given different compensation depending on which cabin we were flying in, with no mention about FC status.

Not sure what you might get, I guess from what you said they looked after you quite well so it might just be some 'good will' miles but if you outline the extra costs you incurred then they might/should view it differently and give you a few extra.

Neil

[Neil]

Originally posted by clarkeysntfc
Thankfully I've not got any experience of a 12 hour delay but I would hope to see a good 50k miles each to be honest. However they'll probably only offer about 10k so you might have to go in hard and demand more.

I doubt it, 50k miles were offered to UC pax when our flight was cancelled, as this was only a delay then I would imagine it will be quite a bit less.

Originally posted by Neil

Originally posted by clarkeysntfc
Thankfully I've not got any experience of a 12 hour delay but I would hope to see a good 50k miles each to be honest. However they'll probably only offer about 10k so you might have to go in hard and demand more.

I doubt it, 50k miles were offered to UC pax when our flight was cancelled, as this was only a delay then I would imagine it will be quite a bit less.

And 10k if you're down the back.

[Neil]

Originally posted by DarkAuror
And 10k if you're down the back.

Actually believe it was 25k for Y pax for the cancellation. 37.5K for PE pax.

Originally posted by Neil

Originally posted by DarkAuror
And 10k if you're down the back.

Actually believe it was 25k for Y pax for the cancellation. 37.5K for PE pax.

Was booked in Y on the VS021 in Oct which got cancelled. Was rebooked on the VS055, got £10 food voucher, 10K miles and a 10 hour wait.

[Neil]

Originally posted by DarkAuror

Originally posted by Neil

Originally posted by DarkAuror
And 10k if you're down the back.

Actually believe it was 25k for Y pax for the cancellation. 37.5K for PE pax.

Was booked in Y on the VS021 in Oct which got cancelled. Was rebooked on the VS055, got £10 food voucher, 10K miles and a 10 hour wait.

Ah ok, our cancellation resulted in a 24hr delay so that is were the differences come in. Your 10k probably gives a more accurate indication about what compensation could be received by flyerdavid.

Neil