Coming soon: big changes

So....
Cheaper Fuel
less wages on Staff
flight prices not fallen.
Shrinkflation at its best. Keep the prices the same, but offer a lesser service - rather than keeping the same service & increasing prices.

Flight price haven't fallen they're up even more, I recently priced a PE to Detroit, it came in at £2,912 for my dates. I can fly to India via Dubai in business for that and thought it incredibly poor value for money. These changes make it even worse value.

I really think VS should rethink, the brand will suffer badly and customer satisfaction especially in the front even more so. At a micro level removing the ice cream service could be replaced with putting ice cream on the snack menu and stock a smaller volume of tubs - VS used to be creative, it didn't used to be an also ran.

I agree with Slinky, imho the UC experiance is no where near as good as it once was.

So....
Cheaper Fuel
less wages on Staff
flight prices not fallen.
Shrinkflation at its best. Keep the prices the same, but offer a lesser service - rather than keeping the same service & increasing prices.

Flight price haven't fallen they're up even more, I recently priced a PE to Detroit, it came in at £2,912 for my dates. I can fly to India via Dubai in business for that and thought it incredibly poor value for money. These changes make it even worse value.

I really think VS should rethink, the brand will suffer badly and customer satisfaction especially in the front even more so. At a micro level removing the ice cream service could be replaced with putting ice cream on the snack menu and stock a smaller volume of tubs - VS used to be creative, it didn't used to be an also ran.

I agree with Slinky, imho the UC experiance is no where near as good as it once was.

I feel as though Virgin has fallen into this "well so long as we are not the worst" ethos that a stack of companies seem to adhere to these days. My company is rather large and we have gone from "we are the best at this" to "well we are not as bad as them". Sad.

Also agreeing with Slinky. I've flown VS ever since I was allowed to fly alone and am two years off from achieving Gold for Life and If that wasn't the case I'd have probably switched carriers sooner. As some who's fortunate to be able to fly Upper for the most part, the pace of decline is all too clear. I feel that RB's more or less zero involvement in the running of the business to be at the very core of the demise of what was the infamous VS service. I often speak to ground crew, cabin crew who'll openly state - 'It was never like this when Richard was around', or on the flip - 'Richard should be ashamed at the way things have gone' and I'm in full agreement.

It's a very sad state of affairs.

Even in economy I was noticing the differences for many years.....always on the downward slope sadly

Thread got me thinking about recent experiences, for the time being it is unlikely that I will be travelling with Virgin for a while (after nearly 6 flights a year since 2001) but that is due to kids and VS being a long haul airline and all the hassle of long haul etc (Have said no more Las Vegas as well, we shall see)
Booking process - not consistent, the V Flyer community seems to know more than the call centre staff
Getting the G's - still doable but need to work at it and call lots of different people and almost talk them through the process
Ground staff - UK side they have become a little disinterested, not rude just average. Not a lot of smiles and the previous friendly chit chat. Return journeys, poor but this has always been the case IMO and as I travel mostly back from the US and BIM this is not a VS problem, just that most staff at Airports don't actually like customer service

On recent flight to Vegas (14th October 2015 Trip Report on here) I experienced the "trial" where they were down 1 member (may have been 2 but I was told 1) and the crew worked very hard and looked cream crackered at the end of the flight. The graze service was an option in Upper. Not sure if the staff were ultra on their toes that flight as there were 3 suits on board to monitor the service but did see the 3 suits get involved in the service as well. Great for VS that you are cutting costs with staff but not sure how I feel about an overworked crew, this surely will affect service at the very least, especially on the return legs where the service is already patchy.

The removal of a member of the management team on each flight is a worry. We all know that a good leader on board makes the flight and keeps the crew motivated and customers happy. (Not all the time see my most recent flight 29th December back from Barbados) and surely you do want your senior crew working in Upper.

Lack of meal choices, have had problems recently anyway with GF meals not being loaded/lost etc and the excellent crew then finding me safe options from other cabins. Sounds like this won't be able to happen now, so will have to bring extra food with me, good old M&S but I could get return flights and not have any food.

As for other small things. The amenity packs are shocking, real bad. The pouches do have their uses when you get back home (sitting in a hotel now with 2 of them, one for my money etc and the other for medicines) but they are not a luxury. No champagne and now tales of drinks running out. I guess they may have to relax the ban on Passengers drinking duty free!

One thing that is still excellent is the lounges at LHR and LGW, but you could pay for access at a lesser lounge or even if you fly BA you can eat at Plane Food which I found very nice and relaxing.

So worrying times ahead, it did seem like the Upper service (and guess other parts as well) had improved recently but last year the inconsistency reared its head again and now all of these little things could come to affect the product.

Makes me kind of glad I don't have to fly for a while. Goodbye Virgin really enjoyed the last 16 years

Happy flying

Trouble is with their main rival on the TATL routes also in a race to the bottom (just look at the current BA lounge debacle at LGW) there's little incentive for VS to improve.

The reality is with DL now pulling the strings, the focus will be on profit, profit and profit. And as BA and the legacy US carriers have proved, most people are happy to put up with a bland, mediocre product rather than paying higher fares.

The real competition when it comes to service is in the Middle & Far East - markets VS no longer really cares about.

most people are happy to put up with a bland, mediocre product rather than paying higher fares

That, ultimately, is the issue. Whilst most of us on V-flyer are aircraft geeks/ travel obsessives/ bargain hunters/ have OCD traits regarding the minutae of airline services (take your pick!), most of Joe Public see the flight as little more than a bus ride and have little interest in the finer aspects of flying on commercial aircaft. If they did, Ryanair would not be so popular.

I must have been lucky, the vast majority of my flights over the last two years have been great and (especially the food) have improved over the few years before that

David

Trouble is with their main rival on the TATL routes also in a race to the bottom (just look at the current BA lounge debacle at LGW) there's little incentive for VS to improve.

I can't see how that is true, BA are currently investing lots in improving their product, yes their lounges aren't like Virgins, but that is what they are aiming at, quick and efficient for the business traveller, and it goes down really well with their customers. The lounge situation at Gatwick is out of their control, this would of been forced upon them by LGW under the pressure of easyjet.

BA have improved their on-board food product in Club recently (and now allow you to purchase an improved Y meal) and pre-ordering of the main course has proven very popular with their customers.

They are also improved fast track at T5, there is now a dedicated entrance at North security that exits right by the North lounge, and they are creating a new fast track at south that enters directly into the F Lounge and CCR.

Also I don't think it's 100% true that its a total race to the bottom, as Virgin are replacing the awful UCDS on the A330's and refreshing the LHR clubhouse, both require massive investment. Airlines know that removing a pot of ice cream is incredibly unlikely to change anyones flying habits, but will save millions.

Times are changing, we are becoming more like the American travellers that see the flight much like a bus ride.
It's sad to say, but more and more B&S economy travellers think VA is a charter airline and don't see ant difference in their product to Thomas Cook.

I don't like the new site. I got an alert this morning that window seats in PE upstairs were available. It took ages to finally get online. It would not recognise my email, flight reference, password or membership number. However, I got my favourite 24A seat. The only problem is that I did not get an email from Virgin as I normally do. My class is W so if they mess up, here's hoping they upgrade me to UC with my miles. It would be nice as my outbound flight is in UC anyway.