Seat Change

I have just given my API for a flight to MCO next Monday and while at it thought I would just check my seats etc. for the flight I booked 10 months ago. The outward journey was OK but for some reason they have had a plane change which means the configuration is altogether different. The seats 6A & 6K which I selected when I made the booking disregarded and no new seats were allocated resulting in my have to take two seats next to the galley and loo which I always try and avoid at all costs.

I called upper class and the lady could not offer any explanation other than to apologise. She couldn't even view the bubble on her monitor which shows as being upper class.

There was talk of making more upper class seats available on the Orlando run and I am trying to find out if this is a one off or not.

Could I request that in future when there is a configuration change we could be emailed so that we can amend our bookings if it is not possible for Virgin to automatically amend seats for us. We are always emailed about other changes so I cannot see a problem for this to be done.

[mitchja]

Seat allocation is also only a request and is never guaranteed.

VS are using a LHR 744 for quite a lot of MCO flights now. My outbound flight for next March is already showing as a LHR 744.

The problem is that an A/C change is not deemed as a big enough change to warrant informing pax. VS can also only contact direct booked pax for any flight change anyway.

When the A333's start coming into service and the LGW/MAN 744's start disappearing for refits later next year, I think we are going to see much more A/C swapping and changing.

The only option I can see is to keep checking your bookings online.

The problem is seat requests are never guaranteed because of operational changes such as this one.

At least VS don't charge for allocation, though

[mitchja]

On the plus side - at least you'll get V:Port

VS dont see an aircraft change as a big enough change but in the summer when AF were flying the A380 LHR-CDG i had an e-mail and a text message on a Friday night saying due to technical problems the A380 was unable to operate on that day (24/7/10) and a 777-300 would fly in as a replacement.
if others can do it why cant VS all it takes is one message to be sent to every e-mail address linked to a booking on that flight

VS dont see an aircraft change as a big enough change but in the summer when AF were flying the A380 LHR-CDG i had an e-mail and a text message on a Friday night saying due to technical problems the A380 was unable to operate on that day (24/7/10) and a 777-300 would fly in as a replacement.
if others can do it why cant VS all it takes is one message to be sent to every e-mail address linked to a booking on that flight

But I think that was a special case as AirFrance were specifically promoting the A380 on that route.

Other UC seats will be opened up when online check-in opens, so not all is lost...

Other UC seats will be opened up when online check-in opens, so not all is lost...[/quote]

Unfortunately this was not the case, I could not even review our seats online two days before departure as this option was checked as unavailable. When we checked in at Orlando when were given different seats for the second time now on opposite aisles.

The 44 UC seats were all taken and but nobody could explain why this particular flight had so many UC passengers. Surely if the Orlando run is so popular with UC passengers why haven't they utilised this seating arrangement more often, certainly in the 5 years I have travelled this route the normal Gatwick configured planes have only been used. We have extremely knowledgeable people on this site perhaps they could shed some light on it.

Just curious.

[Darren Wheeler]

because with a LHR 744 you lose a fair chunk of economy seating too and that's where the money is for MCO.

[honey lamb]

Surely if the Orlando run is so popular with UC passengers why haven't they utilised this seating arrangement more often, certainly in the 5 years I have travelled this route the normal Gatwick configured planes have only been used. We have extremely knowledgeable people on this site perhaps they could shed some light on it.

Just curious.

It's really down to supply and demand.

At one stage the LHR and the LGW planes were very similarly configured with the B zone being UC in both cases and the only difference was that the bubble was all PE in the LGW planes and UC/PE in the LHR ones. Some years ago the decision was taken to reconfigure zone B as the reality was that the demand was not there and overbooking in economy and indeed PE resulted in people being upgraded to UC seats albeit with PE service.

I'm not sure that UC is so popular on the MCO route as a general rule. PE seems to be more in demand but I stand to be corrected on that. The Powers that Be have decreed that some LHR configs should serve LGW but it will be interesting to see what happens when the A330s join the service and some of the aircraft return to the fleet

[Neil]

I imagine the large number of UC pax would be done to a large number of op-ups due to a config change. Due to less seats on the a/c they would have had to move people around, and bump PE pax up to UC to fit as many people as possible on.

The problem with having a higher config UC a/c operate MCO is that they lose out on the number of PE & Y pax, which as HL & Darren have already said, are the cabins the majority of users want on this route.

A fully loaded LGW 747 is over 450 pax, where as a LHR config 747 is just over 350(ish). The LHR 747's have over 100 UC&PE seats, and only 250 or so Y seats, but the LGW fleet have only 60 or so UC/PE seats, and nearly 400 Y seats, so for VS to switch to a higher UC config a/c would mean they would lose out on so many Y pax, who are in the main the families & their target pax group going to visit WDW.

A couple of thoughts from me, in addition to regularly checking your seating:

- VS could if it wanted to alert people by email or SMS to an aircraft change or a seat request change, that's really easy, VS chooses not to for its own reasons
- if a LHR 747 substitutes a LGW 747 then VS should put all those who originally booked UC in the nose, and give them UC service, with upgrades upstairs and in the C zone given PE service and reflect the fact that people have paid a big difference in fares / miles

A couple of thoughts from me, in addition to regularly checking your seating:

- VS could if it wanted to alert people by email or SMS to an aircraft change or a seat request change, that's really easy, VS chooses not to for its own reasons
- if a LHR 747 substitutes a LGW 747 then VS should put all those who originally booked UC in the nose, and give them UC service, with upgrades upstairs and in the C zone given PE service and reflect the fact that people have paid a big difference in fares / miles

y) y)
So obvious!

I wonder why VS choose not to do this!

Only one problem with that is that the bar would then be right in the middle of where the PE passengers are and away from the actual UC passengers in the nose?

Only one problem with that is that the bar would then be right in the middle of where the PE passengers are and away from the actual UC passengers in the nose?

Simple Solution - close the bar and apologise to the UC pax and explain reason why and set up shop in the gap in the middle of the A zone !