VS175

Anyone got any idea what this flight today LHR - MCO is? Is there a broken plane at MCO needing a ferry flight?

I wonder if "Ruby Tuesday - G-VXLG" has gone tech at MAN as the VS075 has been cancelled today from MAN with passengers accommodated on the VS073 and VS109.

I know both flights from MCO to MAN/LGW today are full too so a replacement aircraft is needed.

Jon

That may well be the case, no wonder VSUN is still around - will we see her on the LGW services. With a similar capacity to the 789's and 330's she could be very useful cover.

I see G-VROC is going to be operating the VS072 back to GLA tonight.

Indeed, she's just flown over the west coast of Ireland on her way to MCO.

I wonder if there'll be a few op ups on the VS72 tonight! Presumably they've put her on that route as it's got the lightest load of all the flights back from MCO tonight, thus minimising the need for op ups.

Here's a question. How much do op-ups actually cost the airline? OK I guess the onboard meal costs a bit more, some free booze, an amenity kit? Yes I'm sure they'd rather avoid having to upgrade people without taking payment in cash or miles, but does it genuinely harm them? You never know, the person receiving the peek might then use Virgin again as a result.

They might. But equally the person they sit next to who's paid several thousand for their ticket may never fly VS again after hearing their neighbour boasting about their free upgrade.

In pure monetary terms, an op up costs hardly anything, particularly if it means not having to bump someone off the flight. But an airline that dishes out op ups willy nilly risks devaluing its premium cabins.

This tends to be an issue with the US legacy airlines whose elite status passengers often EXPECT an upgrade to First Class and get annoyed when they don't get one. The danger there is that the airline misses out on revenue as passengers who might otherwise pay for First Class buy Economy in the expectation they'll be upgraded. I'm sure there are DL, UA and AA flights where no-one in First Class has actually bought a First Class ticket.

Here's a question. How much do op-ups actually cost the airline?

With the LHR config 747 operating the GLA flight tonight, Virgin could quite easily keep the "original" Upper Class pax in the A-zone and then offer PE / Y service and meals in the remainder of Upper Class as the passengers are easily separated. OK, slight issue of the bar at the back of the B zone by the stairs, so they have to take a bit of a hit on booze with op-upped pax using the bar.

This is certainly how I would do the op-ups on a config change aircraft. The lucky people who end up in Upper Class seats in the B zone / upstairs get the service they paid for, but in a bigger seat. They cannot complain at that & it may make them think along the lines of "that seat was nice - I'll save up for the full experience in future if possible".

As gumshoe says, Virgin need to keep op-ups to a minimum where there is no aircraft swap involved, so as not to devalue the product.

If they are on the ball, they should offer lots of well-priced cash upgrades at check-in... it wouldn't take much to cover the marginal cost to the airline of an UC seat and it might save them from having to roll people forward through the cabins otherwise.

Depends how busy the load in Y is. GLA flights this early in the season can be very quiet although of course it's right in the middle of the school holidays so may well be quite busy tonight.

I'm sure they'll have chosen the GLA flight because it's the quietest though.

True, I was assuming the flight is busy, which might be incorrect.

At the end of the Easter holidays for most schools, I'd expect flights to be rammed!

At the end of the Easter holidays for most schools, I'd expect flights to be rammed!

They're only half way through the holidays in Scotland (or at least in Glasgow & Edinburgh). Hence maybe the GLA flight was less rammed.

I hadn't realised the Easter holiday dates varied across the UK (our summer hols 4 weeks earlier than England). Yes I've got the little darlings off school for another week so the GLA flights at the weekend wouldn't have been at 100% capacity.