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Arrived home Monday morning after a 2week stay in a rental villa.Villa superb,holiday itself fab,flights to and from awful.Will never fly with Virgin Atlantic again.Outward journey had a 25.5hour delay due to technical fault,resulting flight to be cancelled.Re-scheduled for 10-25am day after,but that flight delayed for 1.5hours.We eventually flew out on what can only be described as an ancient converted cargo carrier.No seat-back T.V's,no nintendo games for kids,2 films shown from what looked like a cinema projector onto a screen in the middle of the plane,whereas if you are as small as me you almost had to stand up to see the film!We decided to fly Virgin,twice before we have flown Airtours,and your hand is never out of your pocket,what with having to buy headphones and drinks,we thought we would'up-grade'just for the 2 of us.What a rip-off!The return journey was just as bad ,although there were no delays.We flew home back to Manchester on the Virgin plane,2 loos on entering plane out of order,not long after take-off 2more flooded,only loos available 4 ,at the back of the plane.Entertainment system kept crashing cabin crew were continually having to reset system.Seat back T.V's far too close to watch when passenger in front reclined seat.Once again plane was well past its fly by date!Hubby and I feel totally ripped off by Virgin Atlantic ,having paid about £200 more per seat this time and had nothing 'extra 'to show for it.We wished we had gone on a charter flight, as you pays for what you get!The flight cancellation was unavoidable ,these things happen but the way Virgin have treated all the passengers on that flight was awful,the complete lack of information.We all lost a complete day off our holiday,and for our inconvenience we have been offered 50% off our next Virgin Atlantic flight.No chance! There were many disgruntled passengers when they were giving out these letters.My letter of complaint is winging its way to Sir Richard on his tropical island!
Don't give up on your claim for reimbursement Lexton. We had a bad experience a few years ago with Virgin putting us in the Luxor in Las Vegas when there was extension work going on 24/7. This was our wedding!!! Sounded like there were motorbikes going through the reception area. Letter of complaint went off, we were offered discount off next hol, refused it politely and explained that it wasn't good enough, another offer of £100 arrived which we refused and we explained we felt we were not being treated in a fair manner. A cheque arrived for £800 a week later! So I think perseverance is the answer, if you genuinely feel you have a complaint, and I personally think you do, stick with it! Good luck !
How awful for you. As Sandra says push for all you can get, totally free flights (At least you know the flight cant be any worse!), and particularly loss of a days holiday, car hire, villa etc. Don't forget to claim on your travel insurance too.
Chris
Most travel policies will give compensation on a delay of more than 24 hours so you should get something there. As to Virgin, if you do not like the offer you get back, you should send an official letter before action threatening to go to the small claims court and publicity. Travel cos hate bad publicity. Alternatively, you could use ABTAs arbitration service. Glad to hear that the villa measured up and you had a good holiday anyway.
tinkerbell
29-09-2002, 21:40
I am not surprised at all lexton to hear what you've said. I have flown with Virgin many times, and for the first 4 trips all was perfect, then on our next return trip, the service was apalling. The cabin crew were all having personal conversations in the aisles, and the food was beyond a joke.
After this experience, I no longer feel the loyalty I once had towards VA. I am now only interested in the cheapest flight going! As long as I get there in one piece I can cope with it!! At least then I wouldn't be surprised with the terrible service!
I have to say aswell, definitely go for all you can with regards to compensation, Virgin pride themselves quite highly on their customer care, and will evetually trip over themselves to convince you that what you experienced was a one off!
Good luck!
I am shocked to hear about your bad experiances on Virgin I know I am not very well travelled having only flown wit them three times but could`nt fault them I have always felt safe with them and the service has been great I hope this will not change when we fly in Oct 2003
Kym
athurstance
04-11-2002, 14:15
I've flown many times with Virgin and would have said I was a big fan of theirs. I have to admit our flight back from Orlando in January was awful. Still I won't write them off just yet - we're flying with them again at Xmas but if its still the same that will be it. We had fantastic flights to Barcelona with BA - I know short haul isn't the same but I was VERY impressed.
On the other hand I can't agree that they're that much more expensive. I've looked at charter flights several times and they always seem to cost more than Virgin. The only cheaper flights I've founds are indirect ones which I don't fancy.
Angela
Angela
Do you think that the service has declined following tha massive loss airlines incurred after 9/11 ?
If you really look into it the airlines did not suffer such great losses after 9/11 as they claimed! In my copy of Financial Times I got 2 weeks before the incident BA were saying how much trouble they were in and stated the sort of job losses they were expecting to have to make. Then 9/11 happened and they had just the excuse for making the cuts they were going to make anyway[}:)]!!!!
Chris
florida4sun
11-11-2002, 20:43
The airlines used this as an excuse for sever cost cutting. They dropped thousands of staff very quickly. They must have had a plan in place pre sept 11th. FLight prices have since gone up. So less staff and hire prices means they are still doing ok.
quote:Originally posted by Kissyme
Do you think that the service has declined following tha massive loss airlines incurred after 9/11 ?
tinkerbell
11-11-2002, 22:07
My bad experience with Virgin I'm afraid to say was before September 11th, so can't really comment!!
I am yet to fly Virgin but did look into it for when we go out in March 03. In the end found a much cheaper flight with American Airlines (indirect via Miami). We flew with Airtours just before 9/11 (yes we sat and watched it all happen on TV within 4 days of our first trip to the States!!) and to be honest I couldn't really fault them but this time we have decided to go the cheapest available. Will let you know how we get on with AA. Can't wait to go back
:D
Just returned from FLA with United Airlines via Chicago. I have to say that of all the airlines I've flown with, UA are by far the best (although this was my first time with them). And when I booked the flights, they were also the cheapest.
I've never flown with Virgin, but have heard good and bad things about them from different people, albeit nothing like Lexton had to suffer !!
Airtours, or MyTravel as they now seem to call themselves, came bottom of a recent reliabilty poll and from my experience, its no wonder. When we were over in Orlando in June, we were
delayed on the outbound journey by 3hrs, delayed coming home by 10hrs and their other flight heading to Gatwick that day was cancelled until the following day. The only silver lining was that as we'd not given our car back, we could spend another day in Disney !
Mike
orlandobabe
28-11-2002, 21:38
We've always gone charter apart from the time when we went Virgin Upper Class with two tickets worth £8,250 in a prize draw.
I've had no problems at all with the charters. You get on at one end and off in Florida at the other and that's all I want.
We take our own headphones and have started to take our own food and if they get me there safely-I'm happy.
tinkerbell
11-12-2002, 19:48
Have to say that I have only flown once charter to orlando and that was in 1992 with Brittannia! They were fine, but the charter service to Orlando has grown immensely in this time.
The thing is now that Florida is now so much more accessible to people, and the charter airlines prices don't vary too much, so the difference in the service they provide is what makes the difference.
There is so much competetion between charter carriers to Orlando, and having to compete aginst dropping schedule flight prices, they have a lot to live up to. Unlike my trip last summer with Air2000 to the US Virgin isles! It was appaling, but, as they are the only charter carrier on this route, they have no need to provide anything extra than they are required. I was disgusted with the lack of water being offered, especially with the recent DVT awareness, I think that there are huge differences between charter flights to Orlando and charter flights to almost anywhere else in the world!
Please has anyone got any advice as where to go from here ,as regarding the Virgin flight hubby and I had last September.Letter of complaint went to customer service dept end of Sept,letter back from them received end of October stating occurences like ours rarely occur,and that they guarantee that they will not recur again,they noted our displeasure at the offer of 50% off our next Virgin flight and offered us £200 worth of Virgin Atlantic vouchers to be used against the price of a published fare on any Virgin Atlantic Airways flight.I wrote back and asked for 50% off the flight we had already been on.They wrote back again stating that there is very little they can add to the comments already made,and my request for a part refund on my used tickets they will be respectfully declining.The offer of 50% is off a future flight.Will I just have to accept defeat?Is there any other way of resolving this issue or has this to be the end of the matter.Any ideas would be extremely welcome.
Write them a letter before action and threaten to take them to the snall claims court (give them so long to give a satisfactory reply and then carry out the threat if not satisfied, your local CAB will help with the forms) and/or to write letters to every newspaper, Watchdog type TV programme etc in the country saying what a heap of **** it was. A high profile company like this with a reputation for quality would loathe the idea of bad publicity.
PS. You need to ask for a specific amount of money as a refund not just let them offer what they want. There is a fee for small claims court which you will lose plus you would have to pay fixed solicitors costs if you lose the case. Depends how far you want to take it.
Lexton,
How can they "GUARANTEE that they will not recur again." Logistics/transport operations are dynamic and subject to change on an ongoing basis - Virgin cannot GURANTEE anything - only have one guaranteed thing in life - and we all know that Virgin sorting these problems out permanantly isn't it!!
I would take them to task about that - state that you fly to Florida frequently (and have never encountered any problems with charter) and their offer of discounted flights in the future is of no comfort/recompense for your loss of days holiday/distress of spoilt holiday, to you as you do not intend to use their services again in the future (remember you are after recompense for what has actually ALREADY happened NOT what they COULD offer you in the future) nor will you be recommeding their services to family or friends, FORUM POWER!! Take them to task over their poor customer service AFTER your return have added further to your distress/upset. It is now 6 months after the problems and they are STILL not resolved to a satisfactory conclusion.
Then mention the option of small claims/-ve publicity to me would be a last resort.........good luck and let us know how it ends up.
orlandobabe
26-02-2003, 17:09
Perhaps writing to say that you will write to someone like the chap in the Express may help. I forget his name-something like The Complainer.
Bad publicity might just force their hand and be a lot cheaper than fighting it in court.
Has anyone read Richard Branson's biography? I suggest getting hold of a copy just to see how the whole organisation works. It's a real eye opener.
Lexton,
I notice that your trip with Virgin was from Manchester. Virgin only lease aircraft for the Orlando route, and these are leased from Air Atlanta Icelandic, and yes they are old decrepid planes painted up in Virgin livery.
My niece was VA Cabin Crew for 10 years, and none of the crew like doing the Orlando route (according to her), due to the amount of children and holiday makers on the flight (holiday makers being the biggest complainers of everything all the time).
I fly VA out of LGW all the time, and can honestly say I have never experienced any problems with them in the past 10 or so years. Only problems ever with VA was on an Athens flight once (to which they no longer fly).
Regarding your compensation. As it has taken so long up until now to get something more out of them, I would suggest you be very wary now about your next step. If VA are certain that they did everything possible during your delay 'to the book', then they can at anytime retract any compensation they have already offered. You, will then be left with nothing!
I would suggest you take what has been offered, and next time try flying out of LGW and see if it makes a difference to your Manchester experience.
Well, the above is based on my experiences with similar situations (although not with VA), and notes taken from my Niece when she worked with VA.
Hope it helps in your decision.
Matt
Thanks for all of your replies and suggestions. The comment from Matthew , about the state of the aircraft used on the service from Manchester,obviously Manchester is not high on their list of priorities for decent aircraft out of there.This is the first time hubby and I have ever written a letter of complaint anywhere about anything,hence the reason for asking you all for advice as to where to go from here.It just really annoys us to think that recently a well known rock-star,was arrested after getting off a Virgin Atlantic flight from America ,after her disruptive behaviour and threatening the cabin crew.Sir Richard then offered her free first class tickets for herself and her friends.Whilst we flew sardine-class had a very long delay,losing a day off our holiday,and had a lousy flight home as well,and the only thing we have been offered is having to spend more money with them to get a half price flight,on one of their decrepid planes out of Manchester.Going from Gatwick isn't an option as we live in Merseyside.We don't expect something for nothing ,as I said this is the first time we have written complaining about anything, but it is annoying that we will have to fly with them to make use of the vouchers we were given. Any way one final letter on its way to Virgin,along the lines which Biggus mentioned,watch this space!
We know how you feel Lexton.
Our flight with US Airways (Saturday)was cancelled resulting in us being re-routed with BA,via Toronto with an overnight stay.
We therefore also arrived a day late (Sunday) and my Dad who was spending our first week with us had flown Delta and arrived on time. He had to get a taxi from Orlando, because the hire car was in our name, and spend the first night and morning alone at our villa.
BA then left our baggage at Heathrow, so we had a night in Toronto with no luggage and our cases finally arrived in Orlando on the WEDNESDAY evening,the final case did not arrive until the Friday morning. Our passes were in our luggage and the fact that we had to keep shopping for our family of 7, it ruined my Dad's week with us.
BA reimbursed us for our expenses for clothing, for the days we were without our luggage but that was it.
US issued us $100.00 travel vouchers each, but the cost of fares from the peolple who will accept them make them a waste of time. We can book cheaper flights with no discount.
steph_goodrum
01-03-2003, 19:35
Lexton
Why not see what their response is to your final letter and then if no joy go to one of the National newspapers with the "2 sides of Customer service" depending on your "celebrity status".
Richard Branson wrote to the Sunday Times week stating that he had not given her free tickets and that she returned to the US on a BA flight.
steph_goodrum
01-03-2003, 23:53
I suppose that wouldn't have made such a good story would it Fiona so someones obviously made it up?
We''ll let him off that one then shall we?