Brisbane Lounge

[Geoff1978]

The Brisbane lounge is really a fail for me tonight.

There is one staff member behind the bar, who is tied up most of the night making coffee's while 3-4 people wait for drink service. There is another young fella who served me when I first walked in, but now has spent the entire night picking up the odd glass or tow. People waiting long periods for service, no bowls, etc. Pretty poor service all round.

Then there are the three lounge staff sitting at the front counter that do not appear to be doing a great deal for the entire evening, apart from having a good laugh.

Add to that a short but polite message of a minor dealy to my flight, which happens to be near 2 hours. Not a pleasant experience on a Sunday evening commute at all.

 

[MarkD]

They certainly need to put the contractors on notice, if that is the case. The reception staff are VA staff, and the lounge staff are contractors IIRC. Obviously the contractors are under staffed, perhaps an email direct to VA would be best, as if they dont recive feedback, they cant fix it. I would also think if they wanted to bore out the contractors, then they would need a formal complaint to back it up.
I must admit, I have on occasion had similar experiences, but mostly in SYD, BNE is normally OK, but I usually fly out mornings, so am usually the one holding up the coffee que.

 

[Noob]

These new contractors sound very poor - typical contractor, cuts staff to improve margins :evil:

 

[Mal]

The hospitality company recently changed. From this thread (and others), it seems they really aren't (yet?) up to par. Complain to Virgin Australia. Although you would hope that deficiencies would be recognised easily and automatically fixed.

Front desk staff are Virgin employees. I don't expect them to walk around picking up glasses etc - but have seen them do it in the past at times.

 

[esquire]

These new contractors sound very poor - typical contractor, cuts staff to improve margins :evil:

Typical Airline - cuts budget allocation to lounge contractors in order to reduce costs


Works both ways

 

[richie9x]

I notice similar a couple weeks back when they had just switched to the new contractor. The one person serving the bar was caught up on the coffee machine for a lot of their time. Was quite a wait to get a drink. At one stage I went back to my table at sat down.

There must be an easy fix for the situation.

 

[Noob]

I notice similar a couple weeks back when they had just switched to the new contractor. The one person serving the bar was caught up on the coffee machine for a lot of their time. Was quite a wait to get a drink. At one stage I went back to my table at sat down.

There must be an easy fix for the situation.

More staff - the contractor sounds like they are trying to cut costs....

 

[MarkD]

Or more to the point, when some of these companies tender for the contracts, they DONT PRICE THEMSELVES CORRECTLY. Im sure service standards would have been part of the conditions of contract, and the contractors would be leaving themselves wide open here. They should have realised what was required. On the other side, maybe they tendered on the contract on CURRENT NUMBERS, at time of tender, then Virgin Status matched every man and his dog, Qantas pissed everybody off, and suddenly the lounge had triple the amount of people in there, Not making excuses for either side, but we dont know what the contract was awarded for, nor the conditions of contract, so I guess all we can do as consumers, is to whinge and cough to Virgin, and hopefully they will fix it, either by amending the contract, to allow for more staff, or reprimanding the contractors for under performance. Thats something for Virgin to work out, and quickly. I dont usually find much of a problem, but most of my Ex BNE flights are OMG Oclock, and maybe I am just in a daze when I wander though the place, but have noticed Sydney is a bit dodgy at times.

Oh, and just a thought, you can be sure the VA staff that are at reception, would be filling in reports of some description on the way things are being run, and I would think they are wandering around cleaning up because of their commitment to the company. They would however be unimpressed by having to do such (I certainly would), and would be passing along their concerns to management.

 

[markis10]

Previously I have noted the angels pitching in and helping where possible, and found that to be very impressive!

 

[docjames]

Must be keeping staffing lower on Sundays as on Friday night there was no problem at all in the Lounge - staff clearing used plates, food replenished. No barista though.


I still think there should be hot food (other than soup) but that was really the only gripe from me.

 

[markis10]

There is hot food on offer, its waiter service pizza etc

 

[docjames]

There is hot food on offer, its waiter service pizza etc

Not last Friday night - didnt see any at all. I was there ~ 1700 - 1840. I was sitting in a fairly prominent area. Similar experience in the SYD lounge about a month ago - no hot food to be seen anywhere.

 

[Justchecking]

This is just me but when you outsource you lose control of the final product. Contract staff have no emotional buy-in to the company. They don't care whether Virgins customers are happy or not. They don't work for the airline, get none of the staff benefits and have no engagement the way the airlines employees do. Yet to the customer they are providing virgins service and are a reflection upon the company. Why should the customer care whether their barista is a contractor or not? I do think they should employee their own lounge F&B staff, it may be more expensive in $ terms but then they would have people in there who are passionate and care about the company the way the rest of the staff do.

The service they are providing is likely to be a product of how they feel about their employer, which may or may not be a positive one.

 

[MarkD]

In my business, we have sub-contractors working constantly, we have reduced the companies we use back to a preferred 3. Simple fact, we had subbies who could not give a cough, which reflected on our service, because we sent the bill out. 90% of the complaints recieved are where a subcontractor is involved, when subcontracting amounts to only 20% of our work. Thats a fairly good indicator.

 

[Major]

Maybe the beer fridge should be self service

 

[JohnK]

The Brisbane lounge is really a fail for me tonight.

We must have been in there around the same time Geoff! I posted this in another thread about the BNE Lounge on Sunday night.

Returned last night on VA at ~6:50pm and went to the VA Lounge for ~20-25 minutes. It was crowded but not overflowing. Food selection was very limited but ok if you wanted a cheese and tomato sandwich with some salami. Most dishes needed refilling as well. Only 3 desktops in the lounge and they were all used by the same people during the length of my stay.

Not being critical but at the moment trying to compare VA as a QF competitor is not easy. Sure VA are improving but they still have a long way to go.

Should have also mentioned that they were out of Pure Blonde or not longer stock it. The person serving recommended Pure Blonde White which was awful. I also tried the Pure Blonde Naked which is similar to Pure Blonde.

From memory though I did not have to wait too long to be served.

 

[carpenteria]

+1 to the OP. First time I've had a chance to use the Brisbane Lounge for quite a while that Sunday night and wasn't super impressed. Usually about 3 or more people wiatitng for drink service at any given time, with no staff member in sight. I resorted to sticking with the self service wine for the most part, somewhat of a pity really.

Toasted sandwhichs saved the night for me, but that hardly counts given that they too are self service... ah well. Hopefully it was just a one off, going to be through there a lot over the next 6 months!

 

[markis10]

We must have been in there around the same time Geoff! I posted this in another thread about the BNE Lounge on Sunday night.


Should have also mentioned that they were out of Pure Blonde or not longer stock it. The person serving recommended Pure Blonde White which was awful. I also tried the Pure Blonde Naked which is similar to Pure Blonde.

From memory though I did not have to wait too long to be served.

Sounds like the refresh is still being done, or the person responsible for the last inflight menu enhancement which saw the loss of spirits is now doing lounge catering!

http://www.australianfrequentflyer....-have-good-beers-gone-34106-2.html#post510681

 

[dfcatch]

In the BNE lounge now and there was only 1 person doing coffee, bar etc etc.

Food offering is still poor IMHO...

That said - I have every confidence that they will get all of this sorted.

In the meantime - it still beats the terminal

 

[ajw373]

This is just me but when you outsource you lose control of the final product. Contract staff have no emotional buy-in to the company. They don't care whether Virgins customers are happy or not.

Not true at all. My wife worked for the old company and she and her collegues gave their all for both the company they were working for and to Virgin.

They don't work for the airline, get none of the staff benefits and have no engagement the way the airlines employees do.

If I am not mistaken many of the perks for working for an airline are long gone, especially at Virgin where there were not that many to start with.

Yet to the customer they are providing virgins service and are a reflection upon the company. Why should the customer care whether their barista is a contractor or not?

True, at the end of the day it makes no difference to the customer and in most cases to the employee too.

I do think they should employee their own lounge F&B staff, it may be more expensive in $ terms but then they would have people in there who are passionate and care about the company the way the rest of the staff do. The service they are providing is likely to be a product of how they feel about their employer, which may or may not be a positive one.

The only advantage this would give is career progression. At the end of the day the problem with jobs like this is attracting and keeping the good staff, however what tends to happen is the good ones come and go and the ones with no option left stay.

This is exactly what happened with my wife. She is a foreigner from a non english speaking background and started working for CLM (the company that had the contract previously) when she moved to Australia earlier in the year. She had no trouble getting the job with her previous experiance as a shift manager at a busy chain coffee shop in the UK, however the company had issues getting people to work there and keeping them. Many would only stay a short time and get sick of the hours, not surprsing with two basic shifts on offer, one starting at 4:45 and finishing around 1-2pm and the other starting around 1 with finishes scheduled for 9pm, but due to flight delays could be as late as 10, 11 or even once or twice after midnight. All this for the basic pay plus a parking allowance. Coupled to this they have to pay for their own security pass, which cost my wife $200 plus police checks in her native country and the UK where we lived, so all up it cost $500 just to be able to start, or in other words she worked a week for free.

Anyway my wife bucked the trend and stayed for a good 9 months and gave her all, however the change of company meant she no longer had any loyalty so she started to activly look for a job elsewhere which she got. Interestingly her loyalty meant even though she had a new job she continued to work in the lounge up until the contract change over dates when she could have just pulled the pin and left the company 1 staff member down, which when there are only 8 people or so would have caused some hurt.

So really if you want the best lounge staff, making them company employees is not the pancia, what they need is good pay, a reasonable mix of hours including some day shifts and a career path.