No more free items from retail menu when flying business

[kamchatsky]

Having never flown VA J (I rarely fly them at all) - it seems surprising they ever did this. It's either over the top and unnecessary, or it shows that their J service doesn't cut it.

Why doesn't J stock the best spirits? I wouldn't be paying $16 for a G&T if I was sitting in business, I'd expect that for free. I kind of get the food aspect but I'd never entertain paying for drinks on Qantas.

I wouldn't be wheeling the cart through J, it's just cheapening your service.

The thing is, VA J is still better than QF J on domestic services even without the free items from retail menu, not to mention cheaper fares than QF.

 

[cdp88]

Although I usually don’t indulge, I do like the option of being able to grab something different/extra. This is particularly helpful if you fly just outside a meal time window when there is only a snack service in J. That being said, I am usually very happy with the J food offering and find it quite filling if you fly over a meal time.

 

[Plutonus]

Why doesn't J stock the best spirits?

This. The better spirits/coughtails should be on the regular business class menu for no cost.

I was also partial to the occasional chocolate from the Y menu. I don't think anyone was ordering ten pies and sandwiches on top of their J meal, but happy to be proven wrong.

 

[Andyc]

On more than a few occasions, I've opted for malteasers to accompany my red wine rather than a meal.
I think it's a disappointing move, partiuclarly when you consider the price of a J ticket.

The 780k in lost revenue is an interesting claim. Assuming a 20-30% COGS we're only talking about about a hard cost of $200k.
Now thats a lot of money (particularly when you're not making much) but Virgin carries ~25m passengers per year. Even if just 1% of those were business (~5% of the seats are business) thats a saving of $0.80 per business passenger! Insane.

I suspect this is an early indicaton of things to come at Virgin.

 

[serfty]

The 780k in lost revenue is an interesting claim. Assuming a 20-30% COGS we're only talking about about a hard cost of $200k.
Now thats a lot of money (particularly when you're not making much) but Virgin carries ~25m passengers per year. Even if just 1% of those were business (~5% of the seats are business) thats a saving of $0.80 per business passenger! Insane.

I'm thinking 'slippage'.

 

[pauly7]

On more than a few occasions, I've opted for malteasers to accompany my red wine rather than a meal.
I think it's a disappointing move, partiuclarly when you consider the price of a J ticket.

The 780k in lost revenue is an interesting claim. Assuming a 20-30% COGS we're only talking about about a hard cost of $200k.
Now thats a lot of money (particularly when you're not making much) but Virgin carries ~25m passengers per year. Even if just 1% of those were business (~5% of the seats are business) thats a saving of $0.80 per business passenger! Insane.

I suspect this is an early indicaton of things to come at Virgin.

Well here’s another reason they could be chopping back this offering... on a few flights I’ve seen VA crew eating items that appear on the retail menu. I’m guessing that VA have no way of knowing for sure if a J customer ‘ordered’ it or not

But more likely it’s the pax of course, I have seen a lot of cheese and crackers go out and chocolate.... personally I don’t really care.

This is now the second cost cutting activity (that we know about) slipped through the and both cuts are targeting J pax interestingly.... weird strategy....?

 

[Vic]

Having never flown VA J (I rarely fly them at all) - it seems surprising they ever did this. It's either over the top and unnecessary, or it shows that their J service doesn't cut it.

Why doesn't J stock the best spirits? I wouldn't be paying $16 for a G&T if I was sitting in business, I'd expect that for free. I kind of get the food aspect but I'd never entertain paying for drinks on Qantas.

I wouldn't be wheeling the cart through J, it's just cheapening your service.

Just remember you've never flown business with virgin, that isn't exactly a strong starting point to draw conclusions. Virgin business is certainly miles ahead of Qantas, IMO, and I've flown both a number of times.

Qantas seems to have no problem wheeling a cart through business. But to answer your complaint, I have never seen virgin wheel the retail cart through business.

This. The better spirits/coughtails should be on the regular business class menu for no cost.

Spirits definitely are on the virgin business menu, for free. Last G&T I had was beefeater, the same as in the Qantas business lounge. Overall, the comments about spirits do not match my experience with virgin business class.

 

[Ade]

I wouldn't be wheeling the cart through J, it's just cheapening your service.

Well said. "Cheap" is the right word

 

[justinbrett]

The thing is, VA J is still better than QF J on domestic services even without the free items from retail menu, not to mention cheaper fares than QF.

Just remember you've never flown business with virgin, that isn't exactly a strong starting point to draw conclusions. Virgin business is certainly miles ahead of Qantas, IMO, and I've flown both a number of times.

Qantas seems to have no problem wheeling a cart through business. But to answer your complaint, I have never seen virgin wheel the retail cart through business.



Spirits definitely are on the virgin business menu, for free. Last G&T I had was beefeater, the same as in the Qantas business lounge. Overall, the comments about spirits do not match my experience with virgin business class.

I don’t know if you can say it’s “certainly miles ahead” as that’s a very subjective statement, but in any case my post was not about creating a QF v VA debate (we’ve been there), merely pointing out selling food and drinks to J pax either is unnecessary or it’s making up for a shortfall in the complimentary service.

I also didn’t mean physically wheeling trollies through J is cheap, I mean wheeling it through J and trying to sell food and drinks to J is cheap.

 

[soh]

I don't think we will ever see a retail cart being wheeled up the front to actively sell product. The retail menu should be there as an additional option. If you have made your way through the main meal and whatever sides are there, dessert, red, white, beer, reasonable spirits and the contents of the pantry and then stick up your hand and ask for $25 worth of ink gin and espresso martini they will ask your to pay for it. Seems reasonable.

 

[Ade]

I don't think we will ever see a retail cart being wheeled up the front to actively sell product. The retail menu should be there as an additional option. If you have made your way through the main meal and whatever sides are there, dessert, red, white, beer, reasonable spirits and the contents of the pantry and then stick up your hand and ask for $25 worth of ink gin and espresso martini they will ask your to pay for it. Seems reasonable.

I see your point.

However I believe that the "premium" of flying premium, IMHO, should overcast the need the pay for anything more than what's already paid for (tickets).

 

[Plutonus]

Spirits definitely are on the virgin business menu, for free. Last G&T I had was beefeater, the same as in the Qantas business lounge. Overall, the comments about spirits do not match my experience with virgin business class.

Indeed. I never claimed spirits weren't available for free.

Perhaps it is only my personal opinion, but the Ink gin is better than the Beefeater. It also retails for more, albeit this is not necessarily an indicator of quality. The espresso martinis are only available from the Y retail menu - nothing equivalent is offered in J.

Consequently, from my perspective, Virgin is offering to Y passengers, by default, 'better' drinks (if they are willing to pay). Why aren't these drinks offered to J as part of the normal service?

 

[QF WP]

I rarely need anything after my meal in J, as I've generally pre-loaded (in The Lounge) with sufficient food for both serving sizes to be the same size as a normal meal for me. Looks like that will continue to be my option...

 

[Vic]

I don’t know if you can say it’s “certainly miles ahead” as that’s a very subjective statement, but in any case my post was not about creating a QF v VA debate (we’ve been there), merely pointing out selling food and drinks to J pax either is unnecessary or it’s making up for a shortfall in the complimentary service.

I also didn’t mean physically wheeling trollies through J is cheap, I mean wheeling it through J and trying to sell food and drinks to J is cheap.

I was just pointing out that you're impression is wrong. There is ZERO in this about trying to sell things to business.
I certainly agree that my opinion is subjective, that's what makes it an opinion. Still that opinion is based on experience that I consistently have better meals served on virgin regardless of the time of day. The meal has always been good quality and sufficient to satisfy my needs. That doesn't really change if people flying business who opt for something from the economy menu will now be charged for the purchase. Personally, I've never felt I'd prefer something from the back over the business meals on offer, with virgin.

 

[soh]

I see your point.

However I believe that the "premium" of flying premium, IMHO, should overcast the need the pay for anything more than what's already paid for (tickets).

I agree but there has to be a line somewhere. The J ticket has defined additional benefits around premium check in, premium entry, lounge access and guests, baggage allowance, seating and a dedicated business class menu. If you want anything outside that you are generally asked to pay. If you invite extra guests into the lounge you generally need to cover it, if you go over the J baggage limit you are up for a cost - you cant claim the economy bag limit and then your seperate J limit too (not directly comparable to the food I know).

I suspect that at some point it has been seriously abused by a small number of passengers which has then been flagged and actioned. If it was kept to the odd packet of Maltesers and chocolate bar it would probably still have continued. When you start losing a handful of wraps and Martinis on every 3rd or 4th flight the shrinkage starts to get noticed.

 

[jakeseven7]

I rarely need anything after my meal in J, as I've generally pre-loaded (in The Lounge) with sufficient food for both serving sizes to be the same size as a normal meal for me. Looks like that will continue to be my option...

Until the VA razor gang come after the Lounge that is......

 

[stm1sydney]

I suspect that at some point it has been seriously abused by a small number of passengers which has then been flagged and actioned. If it was kept to the odd packet of Maltesers and chocolate bar it would probably still have continued. When you start losing a handful of wraps and Martinis on every 3rd or 4th flight the shrinkage starts to get noticed.

Yeah, probably a number of passengers hammering the ink gin. It is quite expensive. I was served Gordon's on my last J flight, and it was fine.

 

[jakeseven7]

Yeah, probably a number of passengers hammering the ink gin. It is quite expensive. I was served Gordon's on my last J flight, and it was fine.

I think both VA and QF should support local spirit producers more to be honest...

But back on topic - I see free chocolate go out all the time!

 

[dajop]

In the original linked article, VA was quoted as saying:

The airline says the move “is due to the high levels of retail items being supplied free of charge, impacting revenue opportunities which exceeds $780,000 in annual lost revenue.”

So the $780K is not what it is costing them, rather what they estimate as lost revenue from not selling the products. One assumes that this represents only a portion of what is being distributed, or more fool them if they think that each item being supplied free of charge would have been bought by a passenger.

 

[justinbrett]

was just pointing out that you're impression is wrong. There is ZERO in this about trying to sell things to business.
I certainly agree that my opinion is subjective, that's what makes it an opinion. Still that opinion is based on experience that I consistently have better meals served on virgin regardless of the time of day. The meal has always been good quality and sufficient to satisfy my needs. That doesn't really change if people flying business who opt for something from the economy menu will now be charged for the purchase. Personally, I've never felt I'd prefer something from the back over the business meals on offer, with virgin.

How was it wrong? I gave two explanations and you've reinforced my second hypothesis (that it's unnecessary). I never claimed it was both.

The merits of Qantas v Virgin is completely irrelevant to the discussion. I brought it up Qantas because it's the only Australian domestic J experience I have - I never said one was better than the other, just that based on my experience with Qantas, I don't see why you would offer this.

Retail menus will be loaded in business class seat pockets and crew should introduce the retail menu when taking meal orders after take-off.

Doesn't exactly sound like "There is ZERO in this about trying to sell things to business". It sounds like at least something greater than zero.