Advice on a terrible PE Experience BGI-MAN VS078 please?

The broken PE seat 75C on G-VROY reclining onto my knees for 7 hours.

We came back from Barbados last Monday, 22 August on VS078 (G-VROY Pretty Woman). We had 76 A, C, H and K and I was looking forward to a potential sleep as I had to work the next day. I was in 76C with my daughter in 76A and my wife and son across the aisle. However, once off the ground it became obvious that seat 75C in front of me was broken - everytime the chap put any pressure on the seat back it reclined right back onto my knees and wouldn't even stay locked upright. I'm only 5'4", so that gives you an idea of how far back the seat was falling. It was virtually impossible to get out of my, or my daughter's seat without forcibly pushing 75C forward.
The flight was absolutely full - not a single spare seat - and there was I, having paid extra for PE, with a seat worse than economy. When the cabin staff realized the problem, they were conciliatory and agreed the situation was unacceptable - even giving me a bottle of champagne - but this didn't help the fact that I spent over 7 hours in a hugely uncomfortable, stressful and, I in my opinion, dangerous situation.
I've submitted the standard complaint form to Virgin Atlantic Customer relations, along with the photo above.
I'd welcome your advice if there's anything else I should be doing. Thank you.

You have already contacted VS and thats really all you can do until they reply to your e-mail.

Just checking - I know there's a great wealth of knowledge and experience here! Thanks.

Just checking - I know there's a great wealth of knowledge and experience here! Thanks.

No worries. Let us know what the VS response is and what you want to do after that and I'm sure you will receive all sorts of advice

That is terrible, but i'm sure this has happened with PE in the bubble to other visitors, I recall seeing someone mention it on here some time ago.

You've done the right thing in reporting it and there is no greater evidence than providing a picture!

I hope VS don't 'fob you off' with the forthcoming refurbs. That is clearly a fault and I would expect some compensation for that.

Please keep us posted on the result!

Many thanks for sharing with us and the photo is great evidence so you have done the right thing in contacting VS with your concerns - simply not acceptable to have to put up with that experience.

I am pleased the Cabin crew recognised this and though they are powerless to do anything during the flight perhaps it is worth mentioning to VS when they come back to you, if the seat was faulty on the VS77 outbound as that should have been reported on the flight log so you could have been alerted at the gate.

Let us all know how you get along.

Jon

Bearing in mind the general condition of the furniture on the LGW/MAN fleet I think that the above looks relatively normal. I shall be most interested to hear the Customer Service view on the matter.

When my seat back broke in the bubble a couple of years ago it really broke. It wouldn't lock in any position and the only way I could stop it falling flat on the person behind me was by holding it upright. I did that for several hours on the outbound to GND.

It took me a while to get any sympathetic response from VS. I even had to join Facebook (and yes, I know that I haven't looked back!!) so I could try to embarrass the company in a "public" environment. I was eventually offered some compensation. However I got the distinct impression that I regarded the matter as a much more serious issue than VS customer services etc did.

Roll on the refurb. y)

Is this not a health and safety issue, as they always say you have to be upright for landing and take off. So was this of personal risk to you i would say it is and to the person in the seat. Good luck with your complaint.

I hope its all fixed now as this was a couple of weeks ago it depends on whether any V-Flyer has flown on this aircraft and seat since, I wonder what aircraft I will get on Monday to Vegas ?|

You didn't get a terrible PE experience, you didn't get any PE experience.

What is annoying is VS will still continue to use these seats with known major issues, That seat should be taken out of action.

I'd keep the pressure on about your experience, any mention of a refit occurring shortly is irrelevant and insulting. You paid for a PE experience for that day and the bulk of that experience is the seat and its legroom, you were not given that. VS know that seat was faulty before they set off, its probably been like that for months..

Palming people off whilst continually using key broken faulty equipment is a step too far, especially a seat with issue such as that.. a flickering screen or wobbly table, some thing that breaks inflight is one thing, these sorts of failures are something else all together.. v(

That is awful, you poor thing! I haven't got a huge amount of experience with complaints, but did have a bad PE experience once. The seat had a huge lump in it (like the seat had a massive hernia!) and there was no inflight entertainment. I complained and after about 2 weeks got a bog standard, apologies but not much we can do reply, and here's £50 voucher off future flights. I complained that this wasn't good enough and eventually got some flying club airmiles too. But it was like trying to get blood out of a stone. I later read on a forum from someone who allegedly worked for Virgin customer service that they won't consider offering you any worthwhile compensation until you have turned them down 3 times, I don't know how true this is though. It does make me cross though. My seat and yours must have been broken before we sat in them, surely they could have sorted out some sort of repair while they're landed.

[Darren Wheeler]

My seat and yours must have been broken before we sat in them, surely they could have sorted out some sort of repair while they're landed.

Depends on how broken is broken.

It might sound very easy to take a seat of service, problem is, someone has to be left behind.

A step closer to VS becoming a Low Cost carrier??? I hope not. Okay,faults occur with equipment, it's a fact of life but I wonder what customer services response/attitude will be? In my view nothing short a full refund of the rtn leg would be acceptable. Not only did this chap have No leg room at all, but judging by the angle of the IFE screen, he wouldn't even have been able to see the screen!
In short, he was worse off than if he had been in Y which is why I would expect a full refund.

We all expect to be given the run around by the LCC customer service teams but come on VS, do the honerable thing and offer appropriate compensation in the first instance.

Good luck.


NOC

Customer service used to be the hallmark of VS, in part, and was contributory in stting VS apart from the rest.

From personal experience, this is becoming patchy, if not generally in decline.

To my mind, this is symptomic of a loss of direction within the company that is manifesting itself in a number of ways.

Full refund of return leg seems a bit steep, but I'd expect a good gesture to be made...

I would hope that, as already mentioned, this would have been written in the technical log and rectified on arrival. I'd bet the outbound flight was near empty, have seen 747 flights out from LGW this week with a mere 39 passengers onboard. If the seat had broken on the outbound flight the crew may have moved the passenger and, more often that not, completely forgotton to write up or pursue the fault.

In the image taken, could you tell us if the seat next to it, (75A) is also reclined, as it is not too clear? It may have been that the seat had been mistakenly adjusted to recline waaaay too far back for the aircraft type rather than being broken.

I was in the exact seat on G-VROS last week and the seat in front can not recline that far back and I'm closer to 6 foot.

Customer service used to be the hallmark of VS, in part, and was contributory in stting VS apart from the rest.

From personal experience, this is becoming patchy, if not generally in decline.

To my mind, this is symptomic of a loss of direction within the company that is manifesting itself in a number of ways.

Full refund of return leg seems a bit steep, but I'd expect a good gesture to be made...

I assumed VS renamed their customer service department to "complaints"'department long ago!

I voted with my feet and now AA get my yearly Xmas vacation (6 pax seats) unless VS price comes in substantially below AA.

Which is ironic as in the 80s to mid 90s I didn't mind paying a premium to fly VS as its offering was superior to the rest.

I was in the exact seat on G-VROS last week and the seat in front can not recline that far back and I'm closer to 6 foot.

Well, errrr, it clearly can recline that far (broken or otherwise) as you can see it in the photo. What I don't understand is how can this be allowed under HSE/FAA etc rules?

Surely, in an emergency, the 2 passengers ability to escape in an emergency has been unacceptably compromised by how far that seat has reclined?

If VAA have to take the PAIR of affected seats (let alone the broken one)out of service to ensure nobody's safety is compromised, and thus potentially re-ticket/DNB, then thats a problem VAA have to sort out at their own cost?

EDIT

(Mis read previous post)

I had something like that happen to me one time in Vegas here is my post forum/index.php?f=4&t=257068&rb_v=viewtopic

The Facebook way worked for me but that was a few years ago now