No IFE on VS 28 MCO-LGW 3rd July ( G-VROM)

Hi,

I flew back on the above flight on 3rd July ( " Barbarella" which had come into MCO from MAN earlier that afternoon).

As we settled into our seats the FSM came round introduced herself and mentioned that we had no IFE on this flight as it had malfunctioned on MAN-MCO and they had not fixed it.

We got a letter with a form attached ( with our names in type so they had run off a batch at MCO).

The captain came on and said that despite trying to fix it at MCO they could not ( they could get a part that might fix the problem but it could take at least tow hours to get the part and even then they might not get it fixed so they decided to leave on time.)

We got hande out DVD players shortly after reacing cruise altitude but were told that the batteries were low as they had ben used on MAN-MCO and had not been fully recharged.

I chose Troy ( choice of maybe 16 movies) lasting 2hrs 43min and the DVD lasted 2hours 25 approox unitl the batteries completely died ( it was just after Achilles got hit in his heel i think) .Whilst the crew offered to get me another DVD I decided to call it a night and get a few hours sleep.

The letter offered a choice of three options as a gesture of apology;

(1) 10% of your next VS fare ( published fare)-valid for 18months I think)
(2) £25 duty free voucher for your next preorder
(3) 5,000 FC miles.

This was my first VS filght with no IFE and whilst annoying that it did not work, we did get at least a DVD moovie to watch and VS were proactive in offering the letter out ( you choose the option and send the letter back to VS with your ticket receipt) and it was a night flight so we got more sleep than otherwise probably.

Regards

TBS

[Nottingham Nick]

I assume the failure was throughout the plane.

How many DVD players, were there? Did they stretch beyond the UC pax?

Nick

Hi Nick,

Yes, there wasa total IFE failure throughout the plane.

I do not know if they gave out DVDs to PE/Y ( not everybody in UC ( 10 out of 14 seats full) used a DVD player)

Regards

TBS

No consolation, but at least they did hand out dvd players and offer a "sweetner" I don't suppose they had to do either, at least it was a night flight?(i presume)

I have not heard of this happening to often, has anyone else? On a slightly different note, does anyone know how the planes change? i.e. if ROM was VS75 ex MAN and becomes VS28 to LGW how do the others work?

Not acceptable that IFE doesn't work. When you consider how much Airbus charge for a plane, and the cost putting IFE in - it should work - period.

Originally posted by vizbiz
Not acceptable that IFE doesn't work. When you consider how much Airbus charge for a plane, and the cost putting IFE in - it should work - period.

I do believe that G-VROM is a Boeing 747-400.

We got hande out DVD players shortly after reacing cruise altitude but were told that the batteries were low as they had ben used on MAN-MCO and had not been fully recharged.

surely the crew would have handed out power adapters for the players if the battery was low. VS site lists tip 43 as "DVD Player"

http://www.virgin-atlantic.com/tridion/ ... 190361.pdf

Originally posted by vizbiz
Not acceptable that IFE doesn't work. When you consider how much Airbus charge for a plane, and the cost putting IFE in - it should work - period.

G-VROM is a 744 as VS-EWR stated... also, I could be wrong, but I believe VS does the V|Port refit when UCS get installed? At least thats what happened on the 744's... do the new 346's come with UCS/V|Port, or does VS fit it?

I flew with G-VROM mid-July... and we too had problems with the IFE. V|Port had to be restarted approximately 20 minutes after it was started, because half of the aircraft was without IFE. The In-Flight Service Manager explained that on a long flight, the cache fills up in the system, and sometimes is not properly cleared. As the inbound a/c flew LAX-LHR as a daytime flight, he said it was likley used quite a bit, and resulted in half of it going offline.

I was suprised they don't power it all down upon landing to clear the cache? Since a complete shutdown would/should clear any temperory memory in the system.

The CSM also explained that the reson they show the Sky news is because it takes approximately 30-35 minutes for V|Port to come online, as it rebuilds the movie/music database everytime it is brought online. This also meant that when they restarted it in-flight, it took over 30 minutes to come back on. A lot of people were upset because they had started watching something, but at least it came back on and worked for everyone.

Maybe there's just a hardware bug issue with G-VROM.

I just noticed that there is a trip report by "newby" in UC on this flight.

The crew were again outstanding on this flight, especially given the attitude of the passengers around the lack of IFE, and in Upper Class once again the crew came up trumps and offered their own individual IFE systems which they have in their crew rest areas for us to use if needed Ð this was gratefully received by some of us especially as the DVD players were either broken or suffering from flat battery syndrome (for those of you that havenÕt seem them before (I hadnÕt) the crew IFE systems are a bit like mini laptops and replicate what would normally be on the V:Port system).

Seems like the crew looked after them. [y]

Regards

Paul

Originally posted by webdes03

Originally posted by vizbiz
G-VROM is a 744 as VS-EWR stated... also, I could be wrong, but I believe VS does the V|Port refit when UCS get installed?.....

Maybe there's just a hardware bug issue with G-VROM.

V-ROM is a Nova IFE equipped B744 - i.e. it does not have V:port.

Only the Arcadia equipped B744's got a V:Port up-grade, all VS Planes with Nova or Odyssey have retained the existing IFE when UCS got installed (albeit Nova got slightly improved with more channels added)

As for the A346's, yes they get delivered with V:Port installed.

Hi,
I flew MCO to MAN UCS on 2/9/05 & had the same problem.
We were told once airborn that the problem had arisen on the outbound flight from Manchester & couldn't be fixed.
Sorry I don't know which aircraft it was.

My teenagers were in economy so weren't given a dvd player, they were not amused.
I would have liked to have been told,if possible before boarding so that we could have stocked up on magazines etc.

Ironic that after waiting for so long for the newer aircraft the Manchester route should be having these problems. I wonder just how often it is happening.

Regards
DMH

[/quote]

V-ROM is a Nova IFE equipped B744 - i.e. it does not have V:port.

Only the Arcadia equipped B744's got a V:Port up-grade, all VS Planes with Nova or Odyssey have retained the existing IFE when UCS got installed (albeit Nova got slightly improved with more channels added)

As for the A346's, yes they get delivered with V:Port installed.
[/quote]

Does anyone know the reasoning behind this? I think its a shame that on a route that is 'family orientated' that the V-port system would be ideal on, instead we get Nova - which in comparison is so sub standard [V] or Odyssey - if lucky.

Seems very weird that an airline of the calibre of VS should have so many differing versions of IFE, thats what goes with getting aircraft 2nd hand I guess [:(]

Originally posted by Jimmy Mc

Does anyone know the reasoning behind this? I think its a shame that on a route that is 'family orientated' that the V-port system would be ideal on, instead we get Nova - which in comparison is so sub standard [V] or Odyssey - if lucky.

Seems very weird that an airline of the calibre of VS should have so many differing versions of IFE, thats what goes with getting aircraft 2nd hand I guess [:(]

The reason was to save money - unfortunately for us passengers [:(]

However, ruimours are rife (albeit on a.net!) that BA may be launching AVOD soon - maybe this will force VS's hand to complete V:Port installation throughout the fleet....

I think we might find that with the deliveries of the Airbuses that the LHR 747's with V-Port, will be re-configured to LGW fit and operate out of LGW making LHR-Airbus and LGW-747 (2 have been done already).

Originally posted by Dave Adkins
I think we might find that with the deliveries of the Airbuses that the LHR 747's with V-Port, will be re-configured to LGW fit and operate out of LGW making LHR-Airbus and LGW-747 (2 have been done already).

Now that would be worth waiting for. Just have to wait till end of July 06 to see if my honeymoon flight to MCO in UCS is NOVA/ODYSSEY or if lucky V-PORT