Disappointing Flight

I recently flew EWR - LHR on VS018 and possibly had the worst VS experience of my life. Not only was the flight overbooked so no option of (an even overprices on the day upgrade - ok, I know, nothing to complain about), but it was on seriously ancient metal.

The carpets were worn completely through, the seats had no padding left (in Y), and worst of all, the entertainment system was the one I remember from my childhood, a 20 channel system with continuously rolling tape and a giant box under my seat (which, according to SeatGuru should not have been there...)

I've flow VS a fair amount this year, I have just short of 100K miles in my account from this year, and I have never come across such a nasty plane. Have I just been extremely lucky or was this a one off thing. I know the LGW metal is older / different, but didn't realise they flew these on the LHR routes too.

Still, it won't stop me from flying Virgin, now that I am only 3 tier points off Gold

Emma

[Neil]

None of the VS fleet are 'ancient metal'. The oldest a/c in the fleet are the LHR 747's, but these are fitted with V-Port IFE, so you can't have been on one of these. It sounds like you were on one the the A343's, of which some are fitted with Odyssey IFE. These a/c were delivered in 1997/1998, so not very old at all.

Sorry that you had a bad flight, the seat doesn't sound too great, but of course the IFE is something that is classed as an 'extra' and Odyseey is still comparable to many other carriers IFE out there. Hopefully you had a good crew looking after you and it didn't spoil your trip too much.

Neil

Ok, It seemed ancient - or in bad nick at least. Yea it was a A343. I'm not sure the IFE should be an 'extra', I certainly didn't realise it was, and it is one of the reasons I fly VS. Is there any plan to upgrade the systems on the 343s?

The crew were awesome and had to deal with some pretty horrendous passengers. I was probably in a less than stellar mood getting on the plane having not slept in a bed for 3 nights (travel + partying). My laptop was out of power so I stuck on my ipod on repeat and consumed enough vodka to pass out!

seatguru...................

Oh well if it said it on seat guru it must have been true!!!

[8D]

the seats had no padding left (in Y),

Did you manage to check all 171 seats in Economy or was it just yours?? [8D][:?]

And the LGW fleet are only 8 years old with the first one being delivered in 2001!!!! LGW fleet are not that bad, the IFE maybe different but the interiors are maintained just as well as the LHR fleet.

[Neil]

quote:Originally posted by emmapersky
Ok, It seemed ancient - or in bad nick at least. Yea it was a A343. I'm not sure the IFE should be an 'extra', I certainly didn't realise it was, and it is one of the reasons I fly VS. Is there any plan to upgrade the systems on the 343s?


There are currently no plans to upgrade the IFE on any of the VS fleet. Yes, Odyseey (and Nova) are not as good as V-Port, but there is still a good choice of new and 'blockbuster' films, with the only major difference not being able to pause/fast forward them.

What I mean by the IFE being an extra, is the fact that it is not something that is a guaranteed model. The only thing confirmed in your contract with Virgin is a seat, in the class of travel you booked. There could have been a tech problem with the original a/c which might have had V-Port (the A346's and A343's do both operate NYC flights), and the a/c you got was the only option. Would you have rather had a cancelled flight, with a 24 hour delay just for better IFE? For reasons like the VS, or any airline, won't commit to specific 'extras' like IFE/a/c type/food etc.

Glad to hear you had good crew, hopefully they helped make up for the other aspects you weren't too happy with.

Neil

Maybe some people get the special 'pro VS' entertainment systems when flying on non V-Port planes, but I've always found Nova and Odyssey to be extremely poor. Yes they may have some good titles, but a number of the channels seem to have worn tapes that make them unwatchable.

VS bleat on about how great V-Port is but a large amount of pax must be extremely disapointed when flying in Y to find they don't have it.

IFE is always a touchy one with VS - they use their IFE offerings as a key service differentiator in their advertising.

I do wonder if VS have contemplated converting Odyssey to use a digital media server, but keep the same seat hardware - so a keeping a 'broadcast' system, not AVOD?

ISTR that Panasonic offer a digital media retrofit to S2K (the system that's under the skin of Odyssey).

At least this would do away with the issues of worn tapes or dirty heads causing bad image quality, and may even save weight. It could pay for itself, given that the 343s will probably be with us for another 4-5 years.

Differences in IFE aside, there is not really an excuse for a decent quality airline such as VS to turn aircraft out with perished foam in the seat squabs and threadbare carpet, which is what the OP seems to be suggesting.

Replacing seat cushions and carpets is a quick job, especially in Y - assuming all the carpet sections and replacement cushions are prepared beforehand, it shouldn't require significant downtime for the aircraft.

Mike

quote:Originally posted by mike-smashing
I do wonder if VS have contemplated converting Odyssey to use a digital media server, but keep the same seat hardware - so a keeping a 'broadcast' system, not AVOD?

ISTR that Panasonic offer a digital media retrofit to S2K (the system that's under the skin of Odyssey).

Correct - I mentioned it here in a Trip Report.

quote:Originally posted by McMaddog
quote:Originally posted by mike-smashing
I do wonder if VS have contemplated converting Odyssey to use a digital media server, but keep the same seat hardware - so a keeping a 'broadcast' system, not AVOD?

ISTR that Panasonic offer a digital media retrofit to S2K (the system that's under the skin of Odyssey).

Correct - I mentioned it here in a Trip Report.


Actually, no, that will be S3K (so the same seat playback hardware as Vport) but with the 'regular' mass-market handset, and the same seat-back screen unit as S2K.

Remember that VS had a re-designed handset for their Vport (S3K) deployment, and as I understand it, you won't find that handset on other S3K systems.

Mike

@mike-smashing that is what I was getting at - IFE is a big USP for VS, so it's a shame when you fly with an older system. And tape wear is a *massive* problem on the Oddesy system, half the channels were unwatchable.

I've never really understood why IFE systems are in general so rubbish. On my outbound flight some seats had issues (not some, hence probably not a central problem), and yet the entire system needed restarting. Which took ~ 60 minutes... I've thought a fair bit about how I would design a replacement system... And I haven't even mentioned the handset design on the vPort. Clearly designed by engineers and not interaction designers. So incredibly counter intuitive. If any airline got their act together an installed seriously decent IFE systems (or Wifi!) I would almost certainly jump to them - it's a big deal for me.

Hi Emma - sorry you had to deal with all that and glad the crew somewhat made up for it.

Should this be in Trip Reports?

GJ

I do understand how you feel in a way, when I came back from Hong Kong the other week they told us that are flight was overbooked when we were on the plane and that some people were even sitting in the jump seats, I think quite a few people had problem with their inflight entertainment (including me) however they could only give a few people DVD players so in that way I do think Virgin should do something about their inflight entertainment.

[Neil]

quote:Originally posted by Dave2009
I do understand how you feel in a way, when I came back from Hong Kong the other week they told us that are flight was overbooked when we were on the plane and that some people were even sitting in the jump seats, I think quite a few people had problem with their inflight entertainment (including me) however they could only give a few people DVD players so in that way I do think Virgin should do something about their inflight entertainment.


and you were on a V-Port equipped a/c, so it just goes to show even the better IFE still can have problems. As much as we all want to wish it was true, nothing is going to work perfectly all the time.