LGW Refits FAQ

[Neil]

can someone update the first post on this thread to show G-VAST as completed please?

Done

Hopefully when I fly out on 20 Nov, most if not all of the planes will be completed. I'm really not too bothered about the layout or seat designs for PE, I'll just be glad if we have the latest IFE system 11 hours is a long time to get bored lol

I'm flying out to Orlando MCO next year in September so if all things go well all of the refits should be finished? Will this mean I will have a excellent chance for a newer UC experience with better IFE? And also be able to pre-assign my seats? As I like to do this so me and the girlfriend can sit together and close as possible (not the greatest flyer)

Thanks

Hi,i am due to fly to St Lucia in late March 2013,all the refit's should all be complete well before i fly but the question i have is if all the aircraft are to have the same layout and the refit's look to be completed at worst by the end of this year,when will Virgin give people the option to pre-book seats,say for example for flights after January 1st 2013 everyone in theory should be able too book there seats now as the refits would be complete.Is there anyone on the site who might be able to shed more light as to when pre assigned seating will be up and running again y)

One plane g-VTOP is not bring refitted as she is leaving the fleet around march 2013

[Neil]

The pre-assigned seating issue after the 1st November is not due to the refits, but becaus VS are having a new system installed. This affects all pax in all cabins and every flight, and there is no information what so ever as to when or even if it will be available again.

It has been suggested on here that VS *might* think about following the BA model and charge for selecting seats prior to OLCI, but that has not had any credible source to suggest it is true.

The pre-assigned seating issue after the 1st November is not due to the refits, but becaus VS are having a new system installed. This affects all pax in all cabins and every flight, and there is no information what so ever as to when or even if it will be available again.

It has been suggested on here that VS *might* think about following the BA model and charge for selecting seats prior to OLCI, but that has not had any credible source to suggest it is true.

Is the software update to go aside the new refits? But it is a real shame that they have scrapped the pre assigning of seats after November!! I used BA for a domestic flight and I paid to book my seat and to be honest I would actually pay to save a seat on the plane. And you cannot believe all on the v-flyer forum sadly but I think it would be a good addition for people wanting a particular seat.. Hope to see an hear more about the seat booking

Personally I think it is a race to the bottom when you try and do what BA is doing, if indeed that is what they decide to do next. Call me old fashioned, but I take the view that I have paid for a seat in the cost of my ticket so should be able to stand a semblance of a chance of getting what I would like. And yes, I do know what the T's and C's are.

This is supposed to be a grown up airline competing on a very competitive route and not Ryanair. Once they lose the differentiators that are currently giving them the edge over BA for me, then the current no-brainer decision to fly Virgin becomes less of one.

Personally I think it is a race to the bottom when you try and do what BA is doing, if indeed that is what they decide to do next. Call me old fashioned, but I take the view that I have paid for a seat in the cost of my ticket so should be able to stand a semblance of a chance of getting what I would like. And yes, I do know what the T's and C's are.

This is supposed to be a grown up airline competing on a very competitive route and not Ryanair. Once they lose the differentiators that are currently giving them the edge over BA for me, then the current no-brainer decision to fly Virgin becomes less of one.

There are no plans - as far as I am aware - to charge for pre-requesting seating.

There are no plans - as far as I am aware - to charge for pre-requesting seating.

A check in agent at LAS (reliable source ) said that BA-style seat reservation charge was the entire reason for the system change. Would rather have that than the current farce...

There are no plans - as far as I am aware - to charge for pre-requesting seating.

A check in agent at LAS (reliable source ) said that BA-style seat reservation charge was the entire reason for the system change. Would rather have that than the current farce...

All the things I've heard so far have said otherwise... However we seem to be the last to find out anything these days so who knows..

Apologies if this has been answered, but does anyone know if any of the re-fits will be doing the LGW to Cancun route in Aug? Flying PE on 14th Aug & after flying Economy to & from Orlando last year, vowed never to fly Economy again!
Our documents state that the Bubble has been requested but not guaranteed,but I can see according to the re-fit config that you are still able to be in the bubble if you've booked Economy. It doesn't matter that much to me, just never been in the bubble before & 1st time we are going without the children, so hoping for something a bit special

[Neil]

Hi and welcome,

Unfortunately it won't be known which a/c type will be operating your flight until OLCI opens 24 hours before take off time. All the LGW/MAN 747's operate every flight so it will just depend which a/c the ops team schedule, but because things change all the time they won't announce it in case it does change.

There are no plans - as far as I am aware - to charge for pre-requesting seating.

A check in agent at LAS (reliable source ) said that BA-style seat reservation charge was the entire reason for the system change. Would rather have that than the current farce...

Farce is understating the situation at the moment.

There are no plans - as far as I am aware - to charge for pre-requesting seating.

A check in agent at LAS (reliable source ) said that BA-style seat reservation charge was the entire reason for the system change. Would rather have that than the current farce...

Farce is understating the situation at the moment.

I disagree that being unable to assign your seats for any flight after a certain date is a farce. What would be a farce is if they had allowed people to select seats only to have them totally wiped out when the new system is introduced. You're still getting from A to B regardless of where you sit.

I disagree that being unable to assign your seats for any flight after a certain date is a farce. What would be a farce is if they had allowed people to select seats only to have them totally wiped out when the new system is introduced. You're still getting from A to B regardless of where you sit.

I agree !

VS have been 100% open about the restrictions to seat requests.

People need to remember the days when seating was allocated at the airport and no one got a choice !

It's a farce that there is not even a hint of an idea as to when the seat reservations system will be back up and running. For people with flights beyond 1st Nov, the situation is even worse than BA's lamentable policy.

Likewise the website appears to be going through the slowest update in Internet history.

It's a farce that there is not even a hint of an idea as to when the seat reservations system will be back up and running. For people with flights beyond 1st Nov, the situation is even worse than BA's lamentable policy.

Likewise the website appears to be going through the slowest update in Internet history.

^) y)
Well said, clarkeysntfc. The website update is glacial, and the reservations change just does not make any kind of sense. Everything points to a change in policy of some kind -- if not, what is the reason for the hiatus? Why postpone all reservations AFTER a particular date? What is going on? I am flying on 2 November so I declare an interest!

It's a farce that there is not even a hint of an idea as to when the seat reservations system will be back up and running. For people with flights beyond 1st Nov, the situation is even worse than BA's lamentable policy.

Likewise the website appears to be going through the slowest update in Internet history.

^) y)
Well said, clarkeysntfc. The website update is glacial, and the reservations change just does not make any kind of sense. Everything points to a change in policy of some kind -- if not, what is the reason for the hiatus? Why postpone all reservations AFTER a particular date? What is going on? I am flying on 2 November so I declare an interest!

Although the website update may seem slow, you have to remember that it's being completely re-written from the ground up and that does take time. The new booking process and Manage my booking pages will be unleashed soon and then after that there is only the Flying Club section left..
As for the seating - a new system will mean months of testing for every possible scenario that could arise. I'm sure you'd be the first to complain had they rushed through a system that caused bugs and errors when you selected a seat. Sorry, REQUESTED a seat.

It's a farce that there is not even a hint of an idea as to when the seat reservations system will be back up and running. For people with flights beyond 1st Nov, the situation is even worse than BA's lamentable policy.

Likewise the website appears to be going through the slowest update in Internet history.

^) y)
Well said, clarkeysntfc. The website update is glacial, and the reservations change just does not make any kind of sense. Everything points to a change in policy of some kind -- if not, what is the reason for the hiatus? Why postpone all reservations AFTER a particular date? What is going on? I am flying on 2 November so I declare an interest!

Although the website update may seem slow, you have to remember that it's being completely re-written from the ground up and that does take time. The new booking process and Manage my booking pages will be unleashed soon and then after that there is only the Flying Club section left..
As for the seating - a new system will mean months of testing for every possible scenario that could arise. I'm sure you'd be the first to complain had they rushed through a system that caused bugs and errors when you selected a seat. Sorry, REQUESTED a seat.

This rather misses the point I'm making. If the website is being re-written (and I'm not denying that it's a huge job), why not prep all the content offline so it's ready to go, and then load it page by page over say a week. This surely has to be better than the current effort which I think has been going on for about a year now.

Secondly, the same applies for the seat system. How hard is it to test the system offline on dummy bookings etc, then load it to the 'real world' rather than at best inconveniencing, and at worst alienating thousands of customers?

I'm hesitant to book with VS again until the seating/OLCI issue is sorted, because I don't want to have to spend time on the last day of my holiday looking for a wi-fi connection and running the gauntlet of OLCI to see what may/may not be available. In some ways I'd rather pay BA £60 per seat for some degree of security.

As for the seating - a new system will mean months of testing for every possible scenario that could arise. I'm sure you'd be the first to complain had they rushed through a system that caused bugs and errors when you selected a seat. Sorry, REQUESTED a seat.

Thanks for the reply -- always appreciated.

But what I meant is that it would be much more typical to devise a new system offline, test it, and then deploy it having imported current seat "reservations" into it. I would have thought that this importing would, in fact, be an essential part of the spec for the job, because otherwise you get into a situation where seat requests are either not available (which is where we are now) or they get lost in the migration from one system from one to another. That does seem like a terribly short-sighted policy.

I do appreciate that a seating system will be complex, but the MMB front-end is presumably significantly less complex than the whole thing, and it is not as if VS is doing this in a vacuum.

As for the seating - a new system will mean months of testing for every possible scenario that could arise. I'm sure you'd be the first to complain had they rushed through a system that caused bugs and errors when you selected a seat. Sorry, REQUESTED a seat.

With all due respects. Perhaps the VS department dealing with this would have been well advised to spend some times with the IT teams over in the US. All the major American airline companies operate a system where you can see seat availability in advance and then book that seat during the reservation process. Air Canada have the same system as do Virgin America ii) ii)

Sometimes I feel it's a case of excuses rather than actions but we'll have to see. With the resources available to Virgin Atlantic it simply puzzles me why they can't get it right

With all due respects. Perhaps the VS department dealing with this would have been well advised to spend some times with the IT teams over in the US. All the major American airline companies operate a system where you can see seat availability in advance and then book that seat during the reservation process. Air Canada have the same system as do Virgin America ii) ii)

Sometimes I feel it's a case of excuses rather than actions but we'll have to see. With the resources available to Virgin Atlantic it simply puzzles me why they can't get it right

Perhaps they did talk to VX to learn from when they changed their systems last year and that caused all sorts of issues and complaints with people not only not getting 'their' seats but also missing flights because they couldn't check in (even at the airport) and future reservations being lost and then the phone system collapsing due to demand.

So perhaps someone at VS did take this onboard?

The VX example is completely different. Their issues were caused by problems in changing the actual back end reservation system which the whole airline needs to function. I believe they moved to something called SABRE. There is a long thread about this on flyertalk.

This is far more intensive than a cosmetic upgrade to the VS website.

I don't agree with the thinking 'You're still getting from A to B regardless of where you sit.'

True - of course, we all end up in the same destination, but having a 'good' seat makes such a difference and this is travelling in Econ, PE and Upper. You can't say if you were on a flight, you wouldn't get slightly agitated sitting next to the bar when its full, or your in economy, right in the middle of a four. Your experience is far more pleasant if you are seated in a more highly rated seat. Its like going to a restaurant, there are more favourable tables than others, you still get fed at the end of the night, but if you've been sat by the toilet with people passing by your table all evening, its not a good experience.

A lot of flyers will do what they can to make that 6-11 hour experience more enjoyable and choosing (requesting) a 'better' seat is one of those things. It matters to me and also to a lot of others I would imagine.